


Robots (English Version)

by Kyra_Black



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 18:15:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 54,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10668111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra_Black/pseuds/Kyra_Black
Summary: "This is not about emotions, this is about facts", Happy thought as she puts the baby in the man's arms. "And the fact is that you have a lot more to offer to her than me".Five years later, Lizzy arrives to the garage to put Happy's world upside down, and the hole team as well."This is incredible!" yelled Toby " not only have a husband, but now you also have a daughter, what's next? Waltes is the father? Or maybe Sylvester?"





	1. Friends again

**Author's Note:**

> N /A: The original language of this fic is Spanish, so a friend offered to translate it from Spanish to English to share it with more people, she asked me to make it clear that her english is not perfect but she did her best, I am very Grateful, my English is almost null, I hope you can understand it and please tell me if you would like us to continue translating this story

 

48 hours had passed since the failed proposal, forty eight and twenty Seven minutes and counting - Toby murmured to himself - he was still resting on the couch, while he drinks a glass of water, the alcohol has run out about forty hours earlier, but he doesn't have the strength to get Up and go home. A small part of him was still waiting for her to come back. He wanted her to tell him that everything was a joke, a very bad joke, as a result of her bad sense of humor, or at least, he was waiting for an explanation, he met her for about eight years, they were practically best friends, they have been together for almost eight months and he has already hint that he would ask her to be his wife in the future, instead, she never told him that she was already married to someone else, he was trying to find some memory, a clue, a word, a situation that would help him to understand that she was already married, but he found nothing, he smiled at the memory of her telling him that her longest relationship was with a sander.  
He got up to go to the bathroom - he had been lying on the couch drinking liquids for hours - his cell phone had died several hours ago, although before his cell phone went out, he saw the missed calls of Tim, Sylvester, Cabe and Paige, none from Happy. After that, the garage phone started ringing, he answered and hung immediately, he was sure it was Sylvester checking if he was still alive.  
For a moment, when he stopped self-pity, he thought about the lucky that Walter had.  
He smiled at the thought of his boss confessing his feelings to Paige, it wasn't necessary to be a renowned psychiatrist or an incredible behaviorist to know that she would correspond.

He was lying on the couch, drinking a bottle of water, his brain ordered him acting like a drunk, he was about to start singing a song, just for fun, when he saw that the garage door opens and entered the last person he was expected. The same one he had been thinking about during the last 48 hours, Happy Quinn, the mechanical engineer was there, standing next to the door

“¡Happy!”, he straightened up like a spring and approached her, ready to run and chase her in case she decided to escape again,

“You still here Doc?”, it was an stupid question, he was standing in front of her, and she was pretty sure that he wasn’t an hallucination so, that question was absurd, that was obvious; however, it was the only thing that came out of her mouth.

“I'm still here” He looked at her intently as she spoke, trying to convey something with his eyes, but he didn’t know what. He watched every movement the woman made, he only saw tiredness in her eyes, her eyes were red, but he wasn’t sure if it was because of lack of sleep or because she was crying. The movement she did with her hands, the way she was standing there, she was exhausted, but no like him, he didn’t see the same anguish and despair he felt right now, but the saddest thing for him was that she had no intention of talking.

“I don’t want to talk”, the woman answered a question that no one did, however, she didn’t escape, she didn’t even try to leave the garage

“Why did you not tell me?” Toby spoke after a few seconds of silence, he invited her to take a seat, to have that conversation in the garage door, it wasn’t comfortable.

“It's complicated”, she answered. Only then Toby notice, the way her arms moved, the way she looked down, and as her mouth only whispered the words; that could only mean two things, that she was afraid or she was hiding something and it wasn’t something small; Although his body expression didn’t indicate the correct answer, his instinct and his experience with Happy Quinn told him that the second option was the correct and he wanted to know why.

“I'm a genius” Toby said with a forced smile, there he was again, and he began to use the humor to dispel his nerves. “ One hundred and seventy-eight IQ allows me to understand almost anything”. As he said this his eyes were wide open.

“One hundred seventy” ,Happy corrected him by inertia, and a tiny smile appeared on her lips

“You don’t trust me?” Toby asked, he knew the answer, she would put her life in his hands, She would be led blindly by him not before threatening and complaining about it, but she would, that is how she let him know that she trusted him, not with words, in fact she wasn't a woman of words, she was a woman of action, that was the way she demonstrated her emotions, creating, beating or breaking things.

“Of course I trust you, dummy, she looked into his eyes and he felt her eyes fill with tears”

“I know, but I'm not speaking professionally, I'm talking emotionally”, he remarked the last words. “I love you Happy, and God knows i don't care if you've been married 10 times before meeting me, but i need you to trust me”, he watched her waiting for her to give a response, physical or verbal, but she didn't give him any, she only stared at him with her eyes full of tears without saying a word. “We're not talking about an occasional romance; you clearly no longer have contact with that man”, her eyes widened a few millimeters in surprise, anyone else would not have noticed, but he was Tobias Curtis. “You're a hacker, you might find him and if you can't, Sylvester or Walter or even Cabe could find him, you have access to good lawyers, Walter cheated a Judge to give him legal power over Megan, you could get a divorce even if he didn’t show up. In short, you clearly have no intention of getting divorced and by the way your eyes widened a few millimeters when i said that you no longer had contact with him, I assume that you are still in contact”.

“I have never cheating on you, if that is what you're insinuating” Happy said with clenched teeth, evidently annoyed by the insinuation.

“I know”.Toby ignore the fact that technically she was being unfaithful to her husband with him, he didn’t want to be beaten before he finished speaking, “but I think you still have some kind of contact, maybe as friends”, which confirms my theory that you know where he is and so you could get a divorce easily, so why didn't you divorce him?

“I can`t” ,Happy approached him, and made a gesture to touch Toby's face, but when her hand was only inches away, she stepped back and walked away again.

“I love you Happy, but my love alone is not enough to keep this relation”, Toby wouldn’t let her go; he took her hand and brought it to his lips to kiss her fingers gently. “I know you love me”. He stared at her. “I have an internal struggle between the human Toby and the Psychiatrist, the doctor assures me that your fear at this moment is rational, that there is probably a reason, you are not prepared to talk about it, and that I should give you your space and then when you are ready we will solve it together, my rational part knows that you love me and reminds me that I know your personality better than any other, however …” at this point, a couple of tears descended on the doctor's face. “My most human side is frustrated, I feel that I am not worth enough to have a woman like you with me, my childhood being invisible to my family, my adolescence being despised by my colleagues of college, my adulthood always being watched from above by Amy and her family, Amy's rejection because I wasn’t good enough for her, I never was ... But none of that compares to how insignificant I've felt all these hours for believing that I'm worth anything to you, that I am worth so little to you that you would even have considered telling me that you were married, I know that it is not rational, that I have a thousand and one reasons to show that you love me and consider me as someone important, but part of my brain does not stop shout that i'm nobody for you, my brain screams at me that I’m like a lapdog, begging every crumb of love from you” tears were falling on the man's cheeks, Happy pulled him to her in a hug, Toby approached his forehead to hers and they stayed like this for a few seconds, “but don’t worry, it is only a stage, it will happen in a few days and I will think rationally again, it is only a depressive and self-pitying stage, probably generated by my tendency to self-sabotage”.

“I'm not good with words”

“And I'm too good with them, it's up to me to babble for both of them “ he said with a hint of humor.

“Are we all right then?”, the hopeful tone in Happy's voice didn't go unnoticed by Toby, and in spite of all that had happened in the last few days, he broke her heart by shaking his head.

“ I fight for years against your armor to be your friend, to be your partner, I tear your brick wall to meet you and these last few hours another wall stood between us” when Happy tried to lower his head, he raised her chin to force her to keep his gaze, he needed her to listen, and more importantly, he needed her to understand what he meant. “ This has nothing to do with my present depression, or my self-sabotage. I told you that day in Chernobyl, I'll give you everything you need, be it physically, emotionally or romantically. This time it's up to you to tear down the walls, at your own pace, you will know how much of the wall you are willing to tear down to let me in. Until then I will be here for you, waiting…” with pain in his soul he separated from her, eliminating the physical contact “I trust in you, and I know if you haven’t divorced is for a reason, but I am just a man”.

“Then we'll just be friends, again?” Happy try that he didn’t notice her disappointment

“Until you're ready to speak and tear down your walls, until then I will only be your friend”, Toby said.

“And what if that never happens?”

“Then we shall die alone and sad”.

“I'm not good with emotions, that’s your job; I'm good with machines …”

“But you have them, hidden there, somewhere in your little and beautiful body, I’m sure that just like me, at this moment you have many emotions, however unlike me, you don’t express them, you are an open book, but hard to read, even for me” .Toby walked away from her and walked to a closet, from where he took a pair of blankets and threw one at Happy. “ I think none of us are in a condition to drive, so, go and use Walter's bed; I'll sleep here on the couch”

“Okay” Happy said, catching the blanket, she started to walk up the stairs and from above she saw Toby leaning on the couch, she didn’t want to sleep upstairs, not in Walter's bed, she wanted to be there with him.


	2. The rabbit hole

  
_ February 09, 2011 _

_ She wasn’t an easy person to impress, her life through different foster homes and orphanages had shown her a very cruel part of life and the world, her superior intelligence had also contributed to losing her astonishment ability, everything had an explanation, if something didn’t work she just had to find the fault and fix it and then it worked again. _

_ She was five years old when she designed and created her first robot, seven years when she repaired a motorcycle engine for the first time, and only twelve when she won her first competition for new technologies for vehicles. All her life she had created objects from practically nothing, scrap transformed it into functional objects; She had found her current motorcycle in the trash, took months to repair it, she looked for spare parts all over the country and even outside it, the result had been beautiful - in her opinion – she was proud of it and until now she considered her most beautiful creation. _

_ However now, his precious bike seemed insignificant before the small human being in front of her. The incubator looked giant for the little baby who habited it; To enter there her first reaction was to check the machine, it’s cables, it’s connections, the many tubes that are connected here and there and make sure that everything was in order, her mechanical brain had acted by inertia and as always her attention had focused first on the machines, had consciously avoided looking at the little girl. But when her gaze had focused on her, she couldn’t push it away, for the first time in a long time she gasped and the perfection of that little being surprised her and she could not believe that that precious baby had been born of her and had since passed and for a couple of hours, she was there standing in front of the incubator, just watching. _

_ "Have you thought of a name yet?" She had not heard the nurse approaching and she was startled, the woman was inches from her and watching her disapprovingly. _

_ "Elizabeth," she answered quickly, she had not thought of a name until a few minutes ago, when the nurse had told him to choose the girl's name. She had looked closely at the rest of the incubators and read the names of the babies and had stopped when she read the name Elizabeth, she liked it and she decided that it would call it, there was no meaning, there was no related memory, only a name she had liked. _

  
**Nowadays...**

 

It had been three months since Toby's abduction, the cyclone was almost in order again, the news of Happy's marriage had left them all dismayed; the Monday after the news, Sylvester had tried to find information about Happy's marriage, however seconds after the search began, the woman had appeared in front of him, leaned on his desk and told him that if he returned to try, something very ugly would happen to him; The young genius didn’t doubt that it would be and stopped trying, he had said it before, Happy frightened him and now more than ever. The group leader had also tried, but this time it wasn’t a threat from Happy that stopped him, the discussion that began between them was so loud that Sylvester stayed at his desk while covering his ears and repeated over and over again that he didn’t like that. Paige tried to come in to intervene, but Toby stopped her, assuring her that it was best to just leave them, minutes later and fed up with them. Cabe threatened them with his weapon so they would stop arguing. After this discussion the relationship of Happy and Walter had become tense, a person outside Scorpion wouldn’t have noticed, but the team was aware of  it; after a couple of  weeks from that, Paige was willing to impose couples therapy again, but she was afraid of  Happy's reaction, afraid of her physical and mental state.

Happy and Toby’s relationship had suffered a setback, there were no such small jokes or comments out of place of the psychologist, not with her, had re-boxed and there were days when his face was almost completely swollen, Whole nights working and every day he expected her to take the first step, to come and try to recover the lost, but that did not happen - neither the first, nor the second, nor the third week - after seven weeks he began to lose the hope that it would be so; sometimes he spent hours watching her work, wishing she were as good with her emotions as with her tools. But he didn’t give up, he remained firm in his conviction that if she wanted them to be together, she was the one to look for him, fought against her addiction to her as she had struggled with her gambling addiction, and knowing that everything depended on her now was almost 50% sure he would die alone. Days ago she had asked him to help her with some details of the doll house, it was insignificant thing, and as he had thought on another occasion, for her it was only a repair, a job, but for him, it was to be an alcoholic leaning his lips on a bottle of beer , He savored the hope, enjoyed every second that worked side by side and I wish that those twenty minutes were eternal.

 

"Who wants coffee?" The woman's voice echoed in the garage, drawing Sylvester and Paige out of her reverie, and made Toby's hangover intensify.

 

"If you had not noticed, the garage is small enough for us to listen to you without screaming." Happy grumbled from his work space, he still did not understand why Walter had received a practitioner, well -she knew it - the woman was a friend of  Paige, they knew about the fraternity in college and after a failed marriage she had decided to resume her university career and when she needed to do her internship, Paige had the great idea that she could do it in Scorpion and help her with the administrative area . And at this moment Happy hated that woman for being so noisy, hated the way she smiled, hated the way she dressed, hated her giant heels that made a constant noise every time he stepped and hated the way in That she was looking at Sylvester, she was the typical pretty and popular girl at school, the one who smiled at the nerd boy to do his homework and then mocked behind him. And of course, he hated Paige for bringing that woman to her beloved garage and hated Walter because he let himself be convinced by Paige.

 

"Karla, do I get a package for me?" Walter calmly walked down the stairs with several papers in his hands, looking as hyperactive as ever. "Yes, there it is." The girl pointed to a box on her desk. "Happy, we have a job," Walter said when he reached his own table, took his backpack with his work tools, and when I noticed that Sylvester and Toby were getting up too, "No, just  Happy and me, it's a simple job, we just need to install security cameras in some offices, I need Happy to install them and I'll program them” that was the type of cases they used to have before Cabe arrived, simple jobs where they didn’t  risk their lives.

  
"Why can you do it alone? You just have to install and then go to program, you don’t need to do both simultaneously” Happy said, one of his hands had a screwdriver and the other a clamp and pressed them so hard that it began to leave marks in his hands.

 

“Of course I can," he seemed offended by the idea. "But it's more efficient if we both go, we'll be done in half the time."

  
Happy threw something very close to a low grunt, but finally she released her tools with a dry noise on the table and looked for her purse before the attentive look of Paige, who had a very bad feeling about this, the relationship between Happy and Walter was Tense and the fact that they were alone on a mission could make things worse. They chose to go together in the company car, there was no point in traveling with two cars, Walter immediately went to the driver's side, he thought that if Toby had been there, he would have made some comment about his desire to live. The trip was quiet, until Happy noticed that Walter was not heading towards the center of the city, rather seemed to be coming out of it, but did not want to say anything, just let him drive.

 

  
"I saw you in the garage last night," Walter said when they had been in the car for seventy minutes.

 

"Maybe it's because I work there." The sarcasm in his voice was palpable.

 

"How long have you been asleep?" -Walter was a person very little perceptive to body language, but even he felt the woman next to him tensed. 

 

"It's none of your business, O'Brien," she said through clenched teeth, keeping her eyes on the car window. 

 

"I saw you last night, and the night before and the night before, exactly eighteen nights." Walter said, his gaze fixed on the road.

 

"I'm having trouble sleeping ... it's still none of your business." Just to check, she pulled the lever to open the door and it was locked, Walter had all the doors and windows locked; then Happy realized what Walter had done, there was no case, he wanted to talk to her, he had driven the car far enough away from the city, with the doors locked she couldn’t get out of the car, and although she would try  She would have to walk hours to get to a place where she could take a vehicle to take her back to the garage, another option was to make Walter unconscious and take control of the car, but even she considered it extreme.  “I have not slept well these days, but that doesn’t affect my effectiveness in cases, don’t worry boss, it will not be a problem for Scorpion”.

  
“The first few days you were calm and then fell asleep because of the fatigue, sometimes at the table, sometimes on the couch, but every day …”

 

“Did you see me sleeping for several days?" Happy interrupted. "And just when I thought Toby saw me working was creepy.”It's not the same," he excused, "I was just studying your sleeping habits.”Do you want to study my period as well?" The annoyance in her voice was evident, but the sarcasm went unnoticed by the genius.

  
"Why would I do that?" The fact is that every day you slept less and days ago you stopped doing it completely, I thought that maybe you slept when you went to your apartment. "He recognized the tapping of Happy's fingers at the door and continued to explain his point of view. But then you began to murmur... "

“Stop there." She knew perfectly well what course this conversation was taking, and it was not something she wanted to talk about at that moment. "You also mutter occasionally, many times”.

 

“And we both know what it's like on that occasion." Walter parked the car in something that looked like an elegant hotel on the highway, away from everything. "You're not eating either, I don’t remember seeing you leave the garage to eat or eat anything there in at least four days, even Paige realized that. He waited to see if Happy had anything to say, but she was tense and just stared straight ahead. "You're falling into the rabbit hole," he finally said.

 

“I am not”," she denied immediately.

 

“You are in the phase of mental hyperactivity your brain goes faster than your body, you forget to eat and sleep and you know that what comes is not nice”  fractions of some memories came to his own mind, Happy forcing him to eat, Happy asking him To stay with them, Sylvester looking at him frightened

 

"Why did you bring me here?"  

 

“You have to sleep, if you can’t do it in the garage or in your apartment it may be because they have too many stimuli for your brain”. Walter started looking for something in the glove compartment of his vehicle, quietly remembering what had happened just over five years ago “Mark and I fell more than once, you saved me every one of them”.

 

"I should have left Collins there the first time he fell," Happy said, the first time,  she had taken them both out, it had been easy to take them back, to bring them back to reality, she just needed to make them sleep; But the last time was the strongest, she hadn’t been there to stop the beginning, Toby hadn’t been there and Sylvester was so caught up in his equations that he didn’t notice the two men who didn’t stop talking and whispering during days, by the time she noticed it was too late and Walter's mind was somewhere far from the garage; Happy managed to bring Walter back, but this time it had not been easy, and she had sacrificed a lot on the way. She didn’t regret leaving Collins there, she only left him there for Walter to see in what they were converted and how far they had gone this time, two days later Collins disappeared and it took some time for Happy to know where he had gone .

 

  
"Take it." Walter handed her two pills and a bottle of water. "I figure, these should start to work in half an hour.”I'm not going to take that," she refused, in the past the situation was reversed; it was she who put the pills in Walter's hands. "You have to do it," he thought a way to convince her without a confrontation. "Or I'll tell Paige that you've been sleepless for days because you miss Toby and she will want to talk to you about your emotions and all that." He tried not to smile when Happy took the pills and swallowed them up with some water “I made a reservation, let's go” Walter got out of the car and Happy thought of the idea of just taking the wheel and getting out of there leaving his boss abandoned  “Don’t think about escaping” Walter said while he walked to the hotel  "You don’t have to be afraid”  he shouted at her

  
"You really are a bum in the ass, Walt," she whispered upset before getting out of the car and walking into the hotel, not before whipping the car door.

 

  
Fifteen minutes later they were already walking towards a room, Happy's eyes began to close, but she refused to fall asleep, Walter made a comment about how accurate her calculations were and if she started to fall asleep earlier it was because she had lost a Couple of  pounds. The room was spacious, not as fancy as the one they used during their casino work, but beautiful enough, there was a king size bed and a desk, Walter sat on a bed edge with his laptop between his legs.

 

"I won’t leave, I'll be here when you wake up," he said, not looking away from the screen, remembering the irrational fear he felt every time he fell asleep thanks to those pills.

 

"That doesn’t worry me." She was standing in front of the window, growing tired, but she refused to fall asleep, she didn’t want to sleep, in her dreams she couldn’t save him, in her dreams she was a three years old girl who watching from the window the red van of his father left; She couldn’t control her dreams, in her dreams she couldn’t be rational and everything that she felt in her dreams overwhelmed her, it was easier to be awake, where she could control the situation, where she could think clearly, she knew that the increase of nightmares when sleeping was another sign that she was falling into the rabbit hole.

  
"You want to talk?" Walter asked, thinking what Paige would do or say, but he didn’t really know what it would be like to talk at the moment. "Do you want to talk about your nightmares?" He had also gone through that, they had begun after interning Collins, that last time almost completely lost, one of the first things he remembers seeing when he recovered, was Happy asleep in a chair next to him, she had a part of the cheek and a black eye, cowardly he didn’t ask what had happened and she didn’t tell him, then came the nightmares with Toby, in his nightmares he died, his attempts to break the glass did not work, then the nightmares with Megan , And had been about to fall into the rabbit hole again during Christmas, this time because of his contained emotions, but again Scorpion had been his support, especially Paige and although he would never admit it, he felt like he freed himself from a weight when he cries and admitted that he didn’t want to lose his sister. “Do you miss Toby?” Walter asked her

 

"No," she added, "I see Toby every day in the garage. 

 

“I don’t mean that”

 

“This has nothing to do with the Doc” Happy remained static looking out “I… I like machines” Walter smiled to himself, that was not exactly a secret “I understand them, I can create them, I can repair them, I can do them work, people are different” she sat on a couch and her eyes began to close “People are complex, with their feelings and all those things” with their eyes already closed and her calm breathing added “They should have an instruction manual.”

 

Meanwhile in the garage Karla had returned from the coffee house and had brought her chair closer to Sylvester's desk, saying that coffee would taste better if he drank in good company, the young man had replied that that was impossible, that the geographical position wouldn’t change the taste of a drink. "Idiot, he's flirting with you," said the message he had received from Toby. As he looked at his desk, he saw him waving his hands with eyes wide open.

 

"They just called us from Travex companies, Paige yelled at the guys, they need someone to set up their Wifi, they think someone has hacked their servers and surfed the Wifi ... or something like that," Paige said. "Sylvester, Toby, can you go there?

  
"Ok Walter girl," Toby said, standing up. "You're replacing Walter when he's not here, so you're Walter in a female version," he explained as he saw the interrogation on the faces of the two women. "That doesn’t make sense," Sylvester said. As he put away his implements and left quickly, Karla made him nervous.

 

Both men left, leaving only Karla and Paige in the garage, the first one immediately ran to sit at her friend's desk, at last they had time to talk, with four geniuses walking around they couldn’t talk much, when she arrived to the garage the first thing Paige said was that there was no privacy, the walls were listening and they always had an opinion about everything and generally these could be a bit uncomfortable.

 

"Well?" Walter and you are dating, don`t you?” 

 

"No, it's complicated ... it's just different." Paige said, She could not help smiling, remembering that weekend when Walter had told her that he loved her, he had smiled more those two days than the two years they had worked together, But at the end of the weekend they had agreed that they would let things take their time, they didn’t want to force anything, for the sake of their work and mainly for Ralph's sake, they had gone out together a couple of times, they were going to eat ice cream and enjoyed long conversations, Paige even thought that Walter was being a little more funny, although he clarified that it was a product of the release of endorphins.

 

"He's so different from Drew” before Paige could say anything, Karla added. "It's no better or worse, he’s just different; I just hope he makes you happy.Do you know if Sylvester has a girlfriend? I've been here for almost a month and I've never seen him with a woman”. 

 

"Sylvester is a widower." Paige smiled remembering Sylvester's discomfort the day Karla arrived, he even spent most of the day around Happy, and the next day, by the third day he had organized all the tools and the work table of the engineer, he had disinfected everything until Happy, sick of that sent it back to his desk. For Toby and Walter Karla's presence was indifferent, while Happy bothered her, and it wasn’t necessary to be a genius to realize that.

 

"So young, it's a shame." But she could not continue because Paige's phone started ringing.

 

"It was Walter," Paige explained when she hung up. "He says he and Happy won’t be back until tomorrow." 

 

"Really?, tomorrow? And they're both alone. "Karla's tone didn’t go unnoticed by Paige.

 

  
The next morning Walter woke up on the couch, the day before he had taken Happy to bed and he had sat there doing some projects on his laptop, he planned to invite Paige to a talk about computer security that would take place in New York, and was reserving two hotel rooms and passages, after all if Paige could not go anyway he could invite Sylvester or Toby or even Happy. He was looking for a suitable hotel when they knocked on the door to bring the breakfast he had ordered, he had ordered lots of liquid and a lot of food, Happy had slept for almost twenty-four hours and he knew when she woke up, she would wake up  hungry.

  
"Good morning, Mr. O'Brien, I hope your wife and you have had a good night." The young waitress was smiling too much like Walter. "Oh, she's not my wife, she's a friend," Walter said as she entered the trays of food and sought the tip for the girl, oblivious to her discomfort. "Oh, I’m ... Thank you." The young woman received the tip and left, leaving Walter with the two trays of food, he ordered juice, tea, bread, fruit, cakes and cookies, he didn’t know what Happy ate at breakfast. Happy´s phone started ringing again, it was an unknown number, it had called seven times the day before but he didn’t want to wake Happy for that and now in the morning it had five more calls from that number and two more calls from the garage. He thought that if there was so much insistence it was because something important was happening, so he decided that if they called her again he would answer the phone and if it’s necessary he would wake her, if she still didn’t. It had not been in his calculations that she slept that much, he thought they would have been back in the garage by the start of the day, but it was two hours from that.

  
  


"Doc?", He heard Happy's whisper, drowned under the sheet above her, finally she was beginning to wake up and looked in his direction, and apparently her vision was not clear yet.

 

“Are you okay?” Walter said, but he couldn’t get close when Happy had turned quickly to the toilet. After a few minutes he approached her with a bottle of water.

 

"Luckily she didn’t have much in her stomach." She took a long sip of water and then went to the bathroom. Looking at herself in the mirror, she looked pale and her eyes probably swollen because the excessive hours of sleep. She physically felt better. A little stunned. She was without shoes and without her jacket, she supposed that Walter had taken them away, and remembered how when seeing its silhouette when she was waking up, she instinctively thought about Toby.

 

“Happy” Walter rushed into the bathroom and had her phone in his hand -”Paige just called, says someone is waiting for you in the garage”.

 

"Me?" Who?” She couldn’t think of anyone outside the garage who was going to look for her at that hour.

 

"She says… she says he is your husband”.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Lizzy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> N /A: The original language of this fic is Spanish, so a friend offered to translate it from Spanish to English to share it with more people, she asked me to make it clear that her english is not perfect but she did her best, I am very Grateful, my English is almost null, I hope you can understand it and please tell me if you would like us to continue translating this story

**_09 May 2011_ ** _                               _

_ That same afternoon Elizabeth would be discharged, for the first time in her life she would leave those white walls that had been her home during the past three months. Happy watched her sleep, wondering if when she grew up it would look like her or maybe she would look like him, so far the Asian traits inherited from her were predominant, yet the color of her eyes was still undetermined. Despite being born with only twenty-eight weeks of gestation she was healthy, she had only needed to be in an incubator for eight weeks and according to the power of her crying, Happy dared to say that he had strong and healthy lungs. _

_ “Hey! Are you hungry again”, she had begun to move and complain, Happy, feeling extremely clumsy,  took the baby from the crib and lulled her into her arms while she gave her the bottle. "Today you will go home," Happy whispered as she felt tears fill her eyes. Doctors had said that she still couldn’t see in a hundred percent, but she was pretty sure that those eyes were watching her  “Alex and Carl will be great parents, you are going to have a great family, who will love you and protect you” it hadn’t been easy to make that decision, she'd spent sleepless nights thinking over and over what would happen next. _

_ Happy would have liked to say that when she found out she was pregnant she had been happy, or that she felt afraid or that she might have felt the world fall apart, but she didn’t feel like that, she didn’t feel anything, she just went to sleep.  the next day she got an hour with the doctor, who told her what she already knew, that she was twenty weeks pregnant, he couldn’t understand how she hadn’t noticed it before; That same afternoon she started to read books about motherhood, about how to connect with a baby, about respectful parenting and many other recommended maternity and parenting books in forums and blogs, after a few days, she began to make lists about what to do and what she needed, twenty days later she was totally lost in her mind, and then collapsed, she had absorbed herself in her thoughts to the point that she had forgotten to eat, hadn’t slept in more than a week and had finally fallen into what they called “The rabbit hole” ; A friend found her fainted in the apartment after she didn’t return the calls,  a couple of hours later Elizabeth was born. The first few weeks, Happy was sure she would go home with her, but after a few days, she realized that those were just theories, that raising a child was something bigger than just establishing facts, a genius mind, did nothing more than just establish facts. _

_ "Hey." She didn’t realize the moment the man had arrived. "You know this doesn’t have to be like this," he said as he reached over to stroke her cheek. "I know you love her.  "This is not about what I feel." She closed her eyes to keep some tears from escaping, assumed her hormones were revolutionized, she took a deep breath before continuing, "this is not about emotions, it's about facts, and the facts tell us that you can give her something that I can’t. “I ..." he tried to say something but stopped when Happy put the little baby on his arms, she tried to pretend that her heart wasn’t breaking into a thousand pieces and he tried to pretend he didn’t notice. _

_ "As long as she is fine and happy, I will know that I have made the right decision." Alex did something that he would never have done in his right mind, with his free arm he hugged Happy for a moment, and when she pulled away from his embrace his hand look for the delicate necklace that was on her neck, and followed him with his fingers until he found the ring that hung from him, for some reason he didn’t even wonder why she will wear her wedding ring around her neck. "We have a deal”. _

_  
_ _ “Til death do us part," he said, but he didn’t look at Happy now, he was looking at Lizzy who was sleeping in his arms, he and Carl had agreed that Elizabeth was too big a name for such a small child, so they searched for a diminutive. _

_ Happy didn’t want to say anything else, she stayed for a few minutes watching the scene between her old friend and her daughter; Feeling a stranger she decided to leave the room and go home for the first time in days, it was a way longer than normal, sometimes her vision became blurred by tears, however she didn’t let them out, she refused to cry for doing what she thought was right. When she reached her apartment and felt so cold and lonely she wanted to run back to the hospital, surely Alex wouldn’t have left yet, but then she saw all the motors and unarmed objects in her apartment, no one had taught her about mechanics, no one had taught her how to create, put together or repair anything, everything she knew she had learned from herself, sometimes she armed and disarmed again and again until she discovered the error and repaired it- Only in mechanics, also formulas, computer science was all by trial and error- but Lizzy, Lizzy was not an engine that could repair if she made a mistake, could not arm her again if she broke it; Trial and error were not an option. She sat on the floor with a beer in her hand for hours, felt numb and knew that it was not just because of the alcohol in her blood, she needed to throw what she felt, and the only way she could think of was to go to the garage, Where he took a hammer and began to strike a metal plate, again and again, however didn’t have the expected effect, the anguish was still there. _

_ "You took your time," Walter said formally, his hands on his back and his best diplomatic face. "Sylvester thought you disappeared just like Collins, and Toby thought you'd abandoned us for sex and rock and roll. _

_ "I'm sorry about that." Happy didn’t know what else to say, so she stood there, standing with her hammer in her hand waiting for her boss and friend to say something else. _

_ "I've been working on a formula, maybe you can help me." Walter started to walk to his desk and Happy followed, knowing that was his way of welcoming her. _

**_  
_ _February 9, 2015_ **

_ Happy snorted indignantly, that stupid man had hit her, the idiot was texting while driving and now he insisted that it was her fault for stopping at any moment, and she was already losing her little patience; the little dog in the passenger seat kept crying, and when she could verify that it was all right, she realized that he had peed in the seat and now her car stank of pee. "This is incredible and you do not want to be responsible." The man's luxurious car was terribly damaged compared to Happy's truck, who regretted not having taken her motorcycle. "Fixing this will cost more than you earn in a month! _

_ "Wait here." Happy went to her bag and took Cabe's ID, Toby had taken it that morning just to annoy the man and then he was too afraid to return it, so he had just given it to her and she had come out very quickly and couldn’t return it, she assumed that Cabe wouldn’t be very happy that she posed as a Federal Agent, but he didn’t have to know. "I didn’t want to resort to this, but since you insist" Happy partially taught him the badge while she remembered what Toby said at the bar, when he was introduced as a police officer  “Agent Cabe Gallo, Government Agent, I won’t tolerate this kind of situation, so I’ll be direct ... get the hell out of here now or spend a couple of days in prison for verbally assaulting to a Federal Agent” Happy smiled slightly as the conceited man practically ran into his car and drove off; probably he already had trouble with the law. She also got into her truck while she considered her destination; thought of turning around and going to the garage, but the little puppy at her side won’t let her. _

_ It was February 9, Lizzy's fourth birthday, Alex and Carl had organized a big outdoor birthday, as each year she received an invitation, and as every year she refused, she was aware of what was going on with her daughter, she had received reports from the psychologist who treated her and her pediatrician, she had even hacked the nursery cameras several times, she just needed to know that she was fine, that she was happy and that was enough; she had suffered at first, had nightmares during the nights and felt inexplicably empty; With the passage of time the feeling that something was missing was disappearing, but never completely vanished, and perhaps never would, was part of the inexplicable emotions that made her human and yet she was sure that Toby would give some psychological reasons. Since Ralph's arrival some sensitive fiber inside her body had been touched, she had seen the whole team and herself adjusted to the child, and that feeling of emptiness had increased while welding or traveling on her motorcycle and even while hammering She had found herself thinking of Lizzy; Alex and Carl had invited her more than once to see her, they have called her for Christmas, for Lizzy's birthday and had been offered the opportunity for shared care, but she had refused. _

_ But here she was now, her only intention was to find Alex or Carl or some adult to give her the little puppy - which she now carried in a large cage - she couldn’t help but be stunned by what she saw, everything was decorated like a Medieval castle and there were little princesses, princes and warriors running everywhere, they all seemed happy, but who caught her attention was a little girl dressed in a simple blue dress,  _ _ black curls falling on her back and a wooden bow in her hands , she seemed to run aimlessly behind a group of children, they were clearly playing to catch each other, but Lizzy didn’t seem to understand the logic of the game and just ran after them, and looks absurdly happy. Happy just stayed there, she said she would only stay a few seconds longer; She knew she had to get away from there when she saw that the girl was staring at her and was sure she should go back to her truck when she saw that the girl was running towards her, but she couldn’t do it, she didn’t want to. _

_ "Are you coming to my birthday?" Her child's voice echoed in Happy's ears, she stared at it, her asian features had stayed, it was a mini copy of her, but her hair was much more curly and long, and her eyes had a very nice shine, Lizzy was happy, while she was ... she. _

_ “No” _

_ "Why  not?" She asked, trying to see what was inside the cage. _

_ "Your parents didn’t teach you not to talk to strangers? Happy asked with a frown, watching as the little girl played and tried to open the cage without any fear. _

_ "What do you have there? It's a present for me." she opened her eyes wide open, and practically started to jump into happiness, and Happy simply couldn’t say no. _

_ "It's a gift from your parents." She knelt on the floor, and pulled the little white dog out of the cage, and when Lizzy saw it, she jumped up and immediately took the puppy on her lap. _

_ "Lizzy!" A tall man came hurrying up to where they were, obviously frightened that the girl was talking to an unknown person, however he was surprised he realized that the unknown person was Happy. _

_ "Hey Carl ..." she was interrupted by Lizzy, who ran the short distance to her father, one of her parents. Excited, she taught him the puppy, and while father and daughter were talking, Happy thought to withdraw silently, just leaving the cage on the floor. _

_ "Why are you leaving?" Lizzy ran to her again with the poor puppy in her arms tightly held. _

_ “I ... I have to go back to work” _

_ But they will sing happy birthday to me and there will be cake and candies and drinks,-she was so excited- but you shouldn’t eat many because if you do, you get fat or sick, you must eat fruits and vegetables and drink lots of water - while she was talking she gestured with her free hand while she seemed not to notice that the little puppy was trying to escape. _

_ "Come on, kids don’t bite ... Well, sometimes they do, but you don’t have to come so close." Carl smiled as Happy let out a frustrated sigh, knew she would join and that was as close as they had been since Lizzy had left the hospital and he thought it was a big step,  _ _ especially for the woman - Lizzy go look for a crown, a princess can’t be without a crown, right? The little girl opened her eyes again; she couldn’t let a princess without a crown, so she ran to the center of the party to look for the precious object. _

_ "I just wanted to give her the puppy," said Happy as a justification as they walked after the child. _

_ "You don’t have to apologize." He seemed sincere, though Happy wasn’t good at seeing through appearances. "How are things going?" Are you still in Scorpion?  _ _ After that question, they couldn’t continue to talk because Lizzy seemed extremely interested in showing Happy everything of their interest, introduced him to each friend and classmate, her grandparents and uncles, taught her how each game worked and taught her to shoot with the bow, her enthusiasm was so contagious that Happy forgot the stupid crown in her head and found herself smiling, her outgoing personality reminded her of Toby and the way she spoke literally reminded her of Walt or Sly, She couldn’t help but see at every member of the team on her. _

_ "She's one of yours," Alex pointed out, approaching her as she realized that Lizzy had abandoned her, didn’t want to interrupt that precious mother-daughter moment. Now they were standing watching the children play. "You can’t know." _

_ "She is a daughter of two geniuses, genetics is in her favor," Alex replied as if that answered everything. Happy was going to respond when her phone started ringing, it was Cabe, asking for his badge, angry was nothing to describe it. Happy said goodbye to Alex and Carl, they reiterated to her once more that the doors of their house were open for her, saying goodbye to Lizzy was more difficult than she had expected, but she went relaxed, knowing that everything was fine. _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. Alex Harper

_May 7, 2011_

_"You can kiss the bride." The judge's words pulled Alex Harper out of his thoughts, he focused again on the woman in front of him and what the judge asked him to do. Happy Quinn looked at him, amused, he seemed to be amused by the idea that he had to kiss her, in another situation he would probably beat him just for the sake of trying; He thought of leaving things that way and sealing the deal with only a handshake, but it was his wedding, right? At least they deserved a kiss to seal that union; before the watchful eye of the judge and the witnessing couple approached Happy and with great care he kissed her on the forehead._

_"Now I pronounce you husband and wife" The Judge said goodbye quickly, was a bit rude, but he had an appointment in a few minutes and was late; If it had not been for Alex Harper, he would not have gone to that impromptu wedding._

_"I'm hungry," said Happy, when the witnesses, two people Alex had found in the hospital and paid them to be witnesses, left._

_"Let's get some burgers," Alex said, opening the office door; they both walked in silence until they found a fast food restaurant, it was a small place and nothing flashy. "Perfect for our wedding banquet," Alex said as he ordered. Nothing had changed in them and yet now everything about him was also hers and vice versa, at least legally, and within a couple of hours Lizzy would officially be Elizabeth Harper Quinn, that was the reason they had both legally tied "For life," thought Happy. Either way, she had no plans for marriage in the future, and she hesitated to meet someone who made her want to walk to the altar - or a mediocre judge in Las Vegas - to tie up her life; This was a special situation, something practical, whereby Alex would be Lizzy's legal father and the girl would be entitled to all legal and social insurance benefits from him._

_During her pregnancy, Happy had totally ruled out the idea of adoption, she wasn't sure she could do well as a mother, but she was definitely certain she could do better than social services, and how bad could it be? So when she thought of Alex and Carl as adoptive parents for her little girl, she found a way to do it legally and safeguarding the rights and obligations of both, by remaining the legal mother of Lizzy she had every right to intervene in case Alex or Carl somehow hurt her daughter, she didn't renounce her rights as a mother and didn't give up custody completely and that, somehow, reassured her._

_"_ _Well, my dear wife," Alex began to speak, already sick of silence, talking was not only a distraction, it was necessary, there were still details to be refined. "We have to talk." She was already eating her hamburger and only glanced at it as a sign that she was listening "the first point is ..." he took a deep breath before continuing "Lizzy's biological father" Happy looked at him nervously "Does he know about Lizzy?"_

_"It's a long story," Happy answered slowly._

_"Happy, I need to know what to expect, I must know if there is a possibility that a man claiming the paternity of Lizzy in the future, Carl and I must be prepared for that" he explained, he knew Happy almost ten years ago and knew that the Genius could understand complex equations, memorize books, and turn a junk into the city's fastest car, but when it came to understanding the social interactions and emotions derived from them it was rather awkward and it was necessary to explain things as literally "I also need to know if he had any kind of allergy or hereditary disease, or something that could affect Lizzy in the future"._

_"Don't worry about that." She tried to keep Alex's gaze, "I'll get you a medical report from him and his family"._

_"I still want to know about the man who made my daughter; So I'll ask you some questions about him, you just have to answer yes or no" Happy nodded, she didn't understand his interest in knowing those unnecessary details, and she didn't like it and would never like the idea of talking about her private life, although it was easier to give short, concise answers "One night's romance?" He snapped after a drink. "No," she said._

_"Let me guess," he said, concentrating before continuing, an action that caused Happy to glare at him. "Is he one of yours?"_

_"That's offensive" was a way for Alex to refer to geniuses, he used to jest saying that they were a kind of strange race and different from the ordinary human being; He ignored her offended attitude and with his hand gestured to invite her to answer "Yes"._

_"That explains everything," he said, "then Lizzy could be a genius too."_

_"Not necessarily, there are no studies that prove that a high IQ is a result of a genetic predisposition," she explained "none of us is the son of another genius, so it is difficult to establish some relationship between the genes and the coefficient" she closed her eyes and focused on fighting her need to stop talking and get out of there, she reminded herself that all that was necessary "but you should pay attention in case of delays or developmental delays, if she speaks or read ahead of time, if she doesn't follow you with the look and other details that may be confused with a developmental delay"._

_"Then it is my responsibility to raise and give value to a girl who in the future could be a genius who will eventually save millions of lives" he took his drink and drank all, just like a glass of alcohol "she could well be a wicked human being with an exceptional intelligence, but devoid of sanity ... Great!"_

_"Technically," said Happy, Alex's last description reminded her of someone she already knew, an excess of intelligence and lack of sanity. That perfectly described Mark Collins. "Okay, last question". It was the last one because he knew she wouldn't answer anything more after that. "How many male geniuses do you know?"_

_"Six," she glared at him for the tenth time that day; that was a trick question, she had already admitted that Lizzy's father was a genius, now she limited the list of options to six people, four were her co-workers and two, well those two others he would never find them "OK. Enough of questions, what is the second point?"_

_"Second point?" He looked at her in confusion. "You said Lizzy's biological father was the first point. What is the second?"_

_"I forgot it." he stared at the woman._

_"How did you end up being a lawyer?" Happy questioned, she could not help thinking how ironic it was that the men, who would raise her daughter, were lawyers and one of them with a big career that promised to rise to the top of the chain. she hated lawyers, lying and misrepresenting the truth at his convenience, and sometimes they would get into the heads of their clients and counterparts, remind her of Collins, and she didn't like him either._

_"You hacked the system so the university would give me a full scholarship." He winked at her, she had never admitted it, but he knew it had. It was something she would do, she cared for those she wanted, her way, "shall we?" Happy nodded as she got up and waited for Alex to pay the bill._

_"Well?" Where will we celebrate our wedding night? He couldn't dodge the clap of hands that Happy had on the back of his neck. She was really strong._

_"Don't make me regret this," she growled as he touched the spot where she had hit him._

Nowadays

A new day had arrived in Scorpion, and the two geniuses present were engaged in a heated discussion about whether it was ethical or not to hack a server of the Ministry of Transport to modify the established schedule of the buses, so that instead of the bus N ° 595 passed the bus No. 603, since the second had the most modern security system and also had airbags in each seat and these had been designed by Happy, which gave greater security, in contrast the bus N 595 - which had replaced the bus used by Sylvester - that did not even have seat belts and when he made the driver notice, he insulted him and forced him off the bus, since then the bus did not stop at his Stop and he had to walk several blocks to take another bus. His first option was to file a complaint at the bus station, but they ignored him and told him that they would try to solve the problem, but he did not need to be a behavioral genius to know that he had no intention of doing that. His second option was to talk to Walter or Happy or Toby, the first two had been very stressed the last few days, especially after the big argument they had, so by discarding, there it was; Toby had convinced him to hack the page and rearrange schedules

"We'll just change the schedule for the two busses, we'll swap them," Toby said as he typed some keys into his partner's laptop. "No one will notice," he finished with confidence.

"Walter said we shouldn't hack government pages if it wasn't for a case." Sylvester was starting to get nervous, he couldn't help remembering those cops who had arrested him so many years ago - maybe he should just go to the bus station and file a complaint again.

"They will ignore you," Toby said slowly, as if explaining something complex to a little child - We are hackers...

"I prefer the title of "systems analysts" the young genius said."It's not illegal."

"Okay," Toby said. "We're system analysts", and it's faster to do this on our own, also remember that now we work for the Government, we have done worse things, they won't arrest us. Do you want to trust me? He added, seeing that his words didn't reassure him. "If this doesn't work I will tell Happy to come with me to make a complaint at the bus station," Sylvester said, "She won't be ignored." "No, they won't ignore her," Toby repeated, it had been three months since her breakup, and he couldn't keep his voice from being filled with nostalgia when he spoke of her.

"Or maybe you could go pick me up, we can share the expenses," he said. "Oh, you could get your driver's license and a car and stop using the buses" Toby had tried a couple of times that Sylvester was risky to drive in the street, but his fears were so many, that on foot he was going faster . "Hi guys! " Paige and Karla had just arrived in the garage, and they brought coffee and donuts. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," Sylvester said, and quickly walked to meet them to distract them and let Toby finish his work.

"It's time to work!" Cabe walked into the door with Tim, who gave Paige a quick look before giving a general greeting. "Where's Walter?"

"They're not back yet," Karla said. Cabe didn't know whether to begin to explain to the members present or wait for the arrival of the boss. "Well ... shall we begin?" Toby said after a while. He had finished what he had done before and they were all gathered in front of the big screen, where they could appreciate some graphics. "The main computer ..." Cabe stopped short as the door opened and a diplomatic-looking man came in. He was almost as tall as Sylvester, and his bearing was imposing. "Excuse me?"

"Is this Scorpion?" The man looked around, and seemed incredulous, like a large part of the new customers. "Yes." Paige approached him. "Can we help you?" "I'm looking for Happy Quinn," he said, smiling kindly.

"She's not here at the moment," Paige explained gently, while the rest just watched, the present geniuses exchanged confused looks. "But if you like, tell us what you need and maybe we can help you." "I'm not here for work," he said, "it's personal. I need to talk to her as soon as possible. "Oh! She must be on her way, if you want you can wait for her. "Pigeon pointed a couch to take a seat, Scorpion's members, especially the geniuses seemed confused, Toby had awakened each of his senses and tried to obtain every possible data from the man; For the security with he looked around and ignored the curious glances of those present, Toby could say that he had an important position, some high office, he wasn't sure if he was a lawyer or a businessman of a large company, he wore a watch and ring of marriage, but no other object that would allow him to analyze him more. He didn't look like the kind of people Happy would surround herself with. Why was he looking for her?

"They don't answer the phone," Cabe said, "two geniuses, and no one answers a simple call".

"I called Happy since yesterday and she doesn't answer the phone," the man said as he stood and began to walk through the garage, stopped at Happy's desk and began to observe the tools and cables that were scrambled, without apparent order.

"Why does he have her number?"

"Happy change her phone last week," whispered Sylvester in the ear of the Psychiatrist, he only looked at the man with a frown, this was strange "Don't touch that," Sylvester told the stranger, who had begun to take the circuits - Happy doesn't like to any person to touch her things.

"I know," he said, and Toby could see through his posture that it was true, he acted like a little boy who made a prank.

"Walter! Paige exclaimed with the phone in her ear, catching the attention of everyone present. "Where are you?" She covered the phone with her hand. "What's your name?" she whispered to the man. "I'm Alex Harper." he seemed to hesitate for a few seconds, but just as Paige started talking again, he added, "I'm her husband". "What did he said?" Toby and Sylvester said at the same time.

Happy drove at full speed down the road "not good", she repeated to herself since Walter had told her who was waiting for her in the garage. She had left so fast from the hotel that she had not even dressed completely, her boots were untied and she had not put on her jacket, it was cold, but the need to get to the garage as soon as possible was the most important thing at the time, she knew Alex well enough to know that he wouldn't talk more than necessary, but she also knew her colleagues, especially Toby, and although she knew there was no way he could find out just by reading his body language, she knew that he knew forms of make people talk.

"You're going too fast, it will increase our chances of having an accident, just to arrive fifteen minutes earlier, it's not practical or reasonable at all," Walter said calmly, sitting in the passenger seat, extremely pale; As a member of Scorpion he had done many crazy things and had even been close to death, but few times he had feared for his life as at that time. He trusted Happy at the wheel, she was the team's fastest driver, also the most reckless one, but he had never feared for his life, not even when they ran a motorcycle race and his only means of safety had been to hold on to Happy, the bike had been about to turn around in several corners, but she had always maintained control. However now her mind was in the garage, she didn't seem concentrated enough on the road. As soon as Paige's words passed, Happy quickly left the bathroom, put on her boots, took her bag and left the room, he had collected his forgotten jacket and his own bag and had to run after her, barely gave the time to get in the car before she will start the vehicle. "I can't let Alex and Toby talk too much," Happy said, looking straight ahead. "It's not good".

"So? Is he really you...?" It wasn't usual for him to ask such questions, but he was curious, he and Paige had had long conversations about what had happened between Happy and Toby, not because he wanted to talk about it, he didn't care what Paige would say as long as he could watch her. Although a part of him was aware that his friends were suffering, but there was nothing he could do about it. The door slammed him out of his thoughts; Happy had gotten out of the car even before it stopped completely. They were in the garage.

Meanwhile, inside the garage, Alex was visibly uncomfortable; he had sat down on the couch again and noticed all eyes fixed on him. They murmured and whispered between them, something extremely impolite, especially the boy with the hat, he had tried to approach to speak, but always someone stopped him and it separated, in one of those occasions he could listen to Sylvester to say that Happy would kill them if they put the noses there. When he had been waiting for almost an hour, the garage door burst open and he couldn't help raising an eyebrow at seeing a half-dressed Happy enter the place.

"It wasn't necessary for you to come here so quickly," he said as he got up to meet her, "at least you could have finished dressing up." He couldn't keep talking as Happy took him by the arm and led him to the second floor of the garage.

"Okay, that was weird," Karla said, and they all nodded.

"Walter! What happened?" Paige walked to the genius who had just entered the garage, was pale and his hair completely messed up. "Nothing, why?" The man went immediately to his desk, the woman behind him. He wanted to get into his room and change his clothes, but apparently Happy had taken the second floor. "I did not know my car could go so fast", he said when he noticed what he meant.

"Why did you take so long? Was the work complicated?" Paige asked as if nothing happened, Cabe and Tim were talking about the case that they still couldn't explain to the group, and Toby and Sylvester were at Paige's desk doing something with the intercom, Sylvester seemed extremely nervous, again.

"No, we just fell asleep," Walter said as he searched through his papers. "Us?" Paige couldn't stop the question from coming out in a higher voice than she wanted, drawing everyone's attention. "Yes, and when I woke up, Happy still didn't and I did not consider it prudent to wake her." Walter continued to speak without noticing the effect of his words, Toby thought that conversation wouldn't end well and approached to intervene should it be necessary.

"Did you sleep in the same room?" Paige questioned as she emphasized the word they slept.

"Yes!, it didn't make sense to pay for two if one was large enough.

"Walter! Paige is upset because you slept in the same room with another woman", Toby explained, slapping the man's desk to get his attention, it was clear that the genius would not understand by himself.

"It wasn't another woman." Walter looked at them confused. "It was Happy.

"The last time I saw her, she was a woman," Toby explained, and seeing that Walter still did not understand, addressed Paige. "And he's a genius?"Seeing Walter was going to answer, he added, "is a rhetorical question." He made exaggerated movements with his hands. Paige is jealous! He shouted at the same time as the embarrassed woman shook her head.

"Are you Jealous? for Happy?" a confused Walter asked. "Why?"

"I'm not jealous," he said and ignored Toby's arrogant look. "It's just... never mind." she turned and walked away from the geniuses.

"it's done!" Sylvester announced, not looking up from the intercom in his hands.

"Does it sound good?" Toby asked, forgetting the previous topic. "Listen to yourself," Sylvester said as a soft squeak sounded from the intercom and soft voices could be heard. "It's not as good as a Happy one, but it works." "What is that?" Asked Cabe approaching them. "They're spying on Happy!" He said when he could make out the voice of the woman coming out of the machine. "No," Toby said confidently, "we've built a home-amplifier and casually it's within range". "This is illegal," Tim said, "and immoral," Cabe added, but both of them approached the geniuses. "Anyway she's going to be angry with everyone." Walter refused to join the men grouped around the intercom, but listened intently from his place - this will not end well, he thought. "She's going to kill us," said Paige, who with Karla joined the group of men.

"This is the best thing for her," the man's voice could barely distinguish between static.

"You don't know"

"Scorpion is no place for her"

"Maybe you should leave Scorpion"

"How bad can it be?" - They couldn't hear any more, since suddenly a loud beep sounded on the intercom, everyone had to cover their ears.

"Really, Doc?", The intercom? Toby caught his breath as he saw Happy at the top of the stairs, the second-floor intercom in his hand, broken, probably hit him with some blunt object. She was furious, if it were impossible, he would have sworn she was sparking her eyes.

"It was Sylvester's idea," Toby managed to say, barely breathing. He thought of running away quickly and far away.

"Your hat will pay for this!" Happy was going to continue when Alex passed by her side to go down the stairs - hey! We haven't finished talking yet.

"I already said what I had to say." He stood in front of her and took the broken intercom from her hands and dropped it on the floor. "It's all up to you now."No," Happy said, "you can't just leave her with me." She ran downstairs behind him. "I had two hamsters ... and they died." At the foot of the stairs he stopped and exaggerated his every word. "I forgot to feed them. - "Did Quintis and Tappy die?" Toby had pityingly asked the two hamsters to give Happy after their mission at Fort Knox so that she would remember him when they weren't together, probably unconsciously forgetting the hamsters for relating them to him; they had had a most ironic death.

"Believe me," Alex said. "Lizzy won't let you to forget her presence.

"You can't just come and tell me this from one day to the next." Happy was aware that she had no arguments and was losing control, Alex accomplished what almost no mission had accomplished, made her afraid and proof of it was that she was holding a private discussion in the sight and patience of his friends, and Tim.

"Why not?"

"It's not normal".

"You're not normal," Alex said. "I was talking to Quincy Berkstead ..."

"Quincy Berkstead?" Happy interrupted. "He's an idiot!"

"He has experience dealing with people with little emotional coefficient." He recognized Happy's furious gaze, but he felt the offended look of the other three geniuses present "and he agrees that the best option is not to give them time to think things through. apply shock therapy! "He went to the door and gave a quick greeting to say goodbye to those present," Is your decision". He left the garage, leaving Happy standing on the stairs, motionless, arms dangling at her sides and her gaze fixed on the door.

"Happy?" Paige cautiously approached her; the rest remained silent and not moving, but with their gaze fixed on her.

"Walt, I'm going to take a few days off," she announced as she slipped out of her reverie. Without looking at anyone, she went to her desk and quickly took some things. "A few days?" Sylvester asked worriedly. "The last time you asked for a few days off you disappeared for three months." Walter approached her and took her by the arm, Toby was frozen in place, he wanted to say something, but he didn't know what.

"I need this," Happy said, freeing herself from the grip, when she finished putting things in her bag, she murmured a farewell and left the garage. For the second time she left them all stunned. They were some of the smartest people in the world and they didn't understand what just happened. "Didn't we have a case?" Toby said to break the tension.


	5. Zone B

"We have a case!" Cabe's voice filled the silent garage. He was followed by Deputy Director of National Security, Katherine Cooper and Mark Willis, representative of The Intelligence Center.

"What is he doing here?" Toby asked as he approached.

"The CIA again?" Sylvester dropped the pencils he was ordering when he saw the man, immediately recognizing him, though for the first time he had only been able to see him for a second by the camera of the jet he had hacked.

"I see you already know each other," Katherine said, noticing how the genii were watching the CIA man. "Mr. Curtis!" "Take that look off," he added as he watched Toby glance over at Willis with narrowed eyes.

"It is very inconsiderate of you to ask for help after you tried to eliminate us." He ignored the woman's request and only spoke to the man. "What do you want this time? Did you miss another of your ultra-secret planes?”

“Toby!” Paige warned that she had just come down with Walter, was glad she had gone down in time to stop the genius from talking; Lately the psychologist was more extroverted and hyperactive than usual, before he talked too much, but the last few days had been dedicated to psychoanalyzing any small action of his colleagues, he had spent two hours explaining to Paige why she unconsciously chose clothes According to his state of mind, Toby psychoanalyzed Tim, Cabe, and Sylvester, but Walter was clever enough to get rid of gratuitous and involuntary therapy sessions; Even the geniuses realized that Toby's act was a way of distracting himself from his concern for Happy's unexpected departure, and no one had refused his time on the couch.

"The intelligence center has a little problem in its area of technological development” for nobody went unnoticed by the slight burlesque tone in the voice of the deputy director. National Security has decided to support the CIA through the services of Scorpion.

"How fortunate!” Toby cried.

"Because of previous interactions," continued the woman, "my presence will be mandatory throughout the entire mission to prevent certain events from recurring”.

“Only if we accept the case”.

"The payment will be in cash," said Willis for the first time. "As a multidisciplinary team they can approach the issue from different points of view, something that has helped them in other cases. In addition National security guarantees its discretion and efficiency”.

"How much would the payment be?" They all turned in surprise; Sylvester had asked the question, they could expect that question from Toby and even Walter, but never from him.

"A million dollars."

“No no no !” Toby said. "The last time we worked with the CIA they locked us up and almost killed us" because we knew too much. "He gestured with his fingers to emphasize the last words “and when they offered us a million dollars tax-free we ended up locked up in an underground bunker and they threw us a missile ... a missile!”

"Long story," Walter said to no one in particular.

“Okay come on, what is the worst that can happen?” Paige said, and seeing that Toby was going to respond, he added "Do not answer," Walter said. Once Tim joined the team, Katherine started explaining the case.

“Yesterday at 3 am the CIA was the victim of a massive cyber attack on the premises of area 51” Willis began to teach them, on the screen, a map of the facilities “this would not normally be a big problem, we have powerful firewalls and several people working day and night to reject any kind of system attack”.

"Let me guess!" Toby cried. "Something failed last night.

"Exactly 2 seconds before the massive attack there was a system error in one area," said Sylvester, who had entered the CIA system in seconds, but only as an ordinary user with no credentials, only had access to basic information, But still Sylvester surprised the man, only a few people in the world were able to access with such ease, yet none had advanced beyond “his backup system took exactly five seconds to activate, leaving the system unprotected to attack during three seconds”

“We don’t know if this is a coincidence or is something planned, but last night there was a system failure exactly 2 seconds before the cyber attack, the defense officials hardly blinked when a virus infected the central computer of zone B, of technological developments” He indicated a rectangle, somewhat isolated, on the structural map of the building.

"Zone B is where politically correct technologies, weapons, bombs, ultra-secret spy planes are developed," interrupted Toby, and at Cabe's glare he only shrugged.

“The problem is that one of the permanently damaged software is the one that controls the electronic isolation system of zone B. When the backup system started it couldn’t restore the damaged software and couldn’t remove it to replace it with a secure version”, ignored the previous interruption, changed the images on the screen, where you could see a group of men in white robes, the next image was that of a large room with many cubicles with glass walls, some transparent and others polarized and in one side wall you could see a sign that read Zone B “without the software the doors of zone B can not be opened, neither the ventilation grilles nor the windows, everything in this zone is electronic and the cubicles become airtight”.

"Yesterday at 3 AM there were eight scientists working in Area B, four of which were in the same cubicle." He pointed to the cubicle that appeared to be larger and one of the polarized glasses “three other scientists were here”, he indicated the nearest cubicle to the door “and Dr. Jonathan Silva was working alone. At this moment the eight scientists are trapped there, and are running out of oxygen, according to our estimates they have about eight hours of oxygen lef”t

"Why don’t they just come in by force?" Paige asked.

"To do something like that should force the locks, but by forcing them the system would send a signal to the program, and it would be considered an intrusion and this would generate some kind of reaction," Walter explained, "Besides, the system cables run through every wall, trying to make an entrance can lead to a cable or circuit and we'd have the same problem," Sylvester continued. "Normally it would be some kind of police alert or the collapse of reinforcing walls, but I think this would be very basic for the CIA," Toby said, raising his eyebrows, making his eyes look bigger. "A mechanism of self-destruction perhaps?" He asked. “

Something like that," Cabe said, "by trying to force any possible input, the system sends a self-destruct command to the program, entering a key can stop the process”.

“But there is no access to the program”

“A sequence of bombs is set up within the area so that there is no trace of the projects in which they worked”.

“nor of the workers”.

"This is where you come in," Katherine said. "You can deal with this from two fronts. Your job is to solve the software problem to allow the opening of the doors or failing to find a way to force an entrance to the laboratory”.

"Okay, Sylvester, calculate how much oxygen they have left” Walter stopped paying attention to the people in front of him and focused on the members of his team.

"The cubicles are airtight; each one has a different capacity." Sylvester approached the screen and began muttering figures and data to the watchful eye of the CIA agent, who was increasingly surprised by the genius's acting, however. He still did not decide whether that was positive or negative - you are wrong! He exclaimed suddenly, "You have made a calculation based on the approximate duration of oxygen of a cubicle divided by the number of people who inhabit it; however they did not consider human factors, such as deeper breathing because of fear or nervousness. Considering these factors” he walked quickly to his chalkboard where he began to record numbers and mutter possible factors “the supply of oxygen with less durability has an estimated time of only 270 minutes, with a percentage variation of two percent”.

“We have to solve it before four hours then”.

“All right, let's move” everyone started picking up their stuff quickly at the same time Walter gave instructions “Sylvester and I will review the systems, while Toby and Paige check the security cameras, there may be some strange behavior in some worker and Happy…” Walter stopped when he remembered that she wasn’t there, he remained static for a second, but quickly continued with what he was saying “Willis can get us the structural plans to find a blind spot through which we can enter”

"We need Happy to do engineering," Toby said, "if Sylvester and you can’t re-establish the program ..."

"We will," Walter interrupted.

"If Sylvester and you can’t reset the software," Toby repeated, ignoring the interruption of his boss, "we'll need to force an entry and you can have a coefficient of 197, but none of us are as good at it as Happy."

"But she's not here now, is she?" Walter looked up from what he was doing just to look at Toby, and he could see that there was a bit of resentment there, they had only been for a second, but he was sure that feeling was there “and no one knows where she is and she doesn’t answer our calls or messages, so think about whether it would be useful or not is a waste of time and not that one of them had tried to contact her”, both Walter and Sylvester had respected her decision not to speak, although they weren’t quite in agreement, they had sent her an occasional text message, without waiting for an answer, Paige had tried almost daily and had only a brief response. Toby, on the other hand, had fought an arduous battle between his more emotional side and his professional side. He had finally sent a text message asking her where she was, and she replied that she was fine and that that was all he needed to know.   
Toby didn’t write again, a few days later he received a message from Happy with a photograph, he could see an old engine, at first he thought she was wrong to have sent the photo, but then he noticed the engine and understood that it was the spare engine for his car, it was her way of telling him that she was still thinking about him.

"Where's Miss Quinn?" Cooper asked.

"She's on vacation," Paige said immediately, hoping she wouldn’t ask any more questions. It had been two weeks since Happy had decided to take "a few days off" and since then they didn’t know anything about her, she only sent a couple of texts to Paige to confirm that she was okay, or at least that she was still alive, although as mentioned Cabe, anyone could have taken his cell phone and sent the texts, although - in Toby's words - it was impossible to imitate the acid and sarcastic tone of Happy.

“Hey Kid!” Cabe called Walter to talk privately and walked away from the others “I'm not a genius, but I think Doc is right, maybe it's good that you and Sly concentrate only on software and Happy looks for a way to enter to the place” the genius said nothing, just stood there, hands in his pockets, waiting for the agent to finish talking “if you think it is necessary for the case, I can bring it in less than an hour”.

"Bring her? Do you know where she is? "Toby and Sylvester had just appeared in the hall, both with their equipment ready to go.

"Have you spoken to her?” Toby asked, trying not to look too anxious, but the old application of his phone began to make the noisy sounds of a pig, to detect the increase of its levels of anxiety; It was normal, he told himself, despite what he had said to others or to himself, he needed the presence of this woman in his life, even if she was sitting just a few meters away, without speaking to him, his most ingrained and irrational caveman instinct , he recalled, was to protect loved ones, even if this person was a woman perfectly capable of protecting herself, and protecting him by the way.

“It turns out that this GPS is quite effective” Cabe showed the screen of his cell where they could see a map “one of my kids disappears and the only information we have is a text message. I had to make sure she was fine, he justified”.

"She knows how to take care of herself," Sylvester said.

“A man appears here claiming to be her husband, and after that she disappears for days, Happy can be strong, but she is not immortal, besides you have taught me how easy it is to manipulate a genius if you know how to do it and this guy got her to marry him”,Cabe said, “I called her and told her to turn on the GPS on her phone and if I called her and she would not answer me again or the GPS would go out I'd send the FBI to pick her up. She was furiou” he added, the geniuses noticing the shadow of concern that crossed his face.

"Okay Cabe," Walter said finally. "You're going to look for Happy and along the way you tell her everything we know so far”.

The way to Area 51 was in a strange and uncomfortable silence, interrupted only by the exaggerated puffs of air that Sylvester took, even Toby had kept his mouth shut, absorbed in his thoughts, he remembered that the last time it was Happy who had taken them of the cells, now she wasn’t there in case things got ugly, at least not for now, there was still the possibility that Cabe didn’t find her, she could distort the information delivered by the GPS, no one had wanted to tell the agent , But the three geniuses knew, if Happy didn’t want to be found, she wouldn’t be found.

For Sylvester the ride was shorter than he expected, he regretted not having asked Walter to leave him as his contact with the garage, but without Happy the team already had one less member and send a team of genius composed of only Two geniuses was unreasonable. In addition, the pay was significant, and it was only two days after the White hull hospital sold the rights to its new pediatric ward, and if it added up the money it already had from the TV show, the awards and some cases -Fort Knox Mainly - the chances of getting it were pretty good.

"Let's go to the technology development lab," Mark Willis told the team as they reached the offices waged in the mythical area 51. They walked long aisles, jealously guarded by fully armed military personnel; finally they reached an area where there were equal numbers of men and women, with white coats, and soldiers. Willis asked them to wait outside a reinforced steel door while he entered to speak with the person in charge.

"Why should it take so long?" Paige was getting impatient, and Cooper, too, Walter stared at the door when it opened and Willis motioned for them to come in, the place was bigger than it seemed at first glance; There were wide working tables with a variety of research tools, there were also rows of high-tech computers, in each of the computers there was a person typing in or taking notes. At the end of the laboratory were several work areas separated by thick glass walls, some were occupied by one or more people and others were empty.

"Walter?!” The genius whirled to the sound of a stranger calling him, met a tall, dark man in the front, his hair tied in a ponytail at the nape of his neck, and his rough appearance was annoyed by his amiable smile. "What are you doing here? Did they finally convince you?” he noticed the presence of the rest of the members of Scorpion “Oh! Are you coming for the disaster of zone B?”

"Mr. O'Brien, I see you already know Mr. John Benson." Willis pointed to the man who had just saluted Walter. "He's the security manager for the three research labs, which comprise Areas A, B, and C," John began to detail what happened at dawn. Sylvester and Walter immediately began working on the system, while Toby and Paige talked to the workers, and Benson and his team of technicians tried to re-establish communications with the cubicles, via an emergency route, but none had greater results and time was advancing. Walter checked the system for the tenth time when his phone rang alerting a message.

“It's Cabe” the whole team, including Tim, approached “Cabe said that there were a couple of problems, but that he and Happy are already on their way” sent a quick response before turning to Paige “scans the planes of the zone B and send them to Happy to check them out on the way”.

"There are only 193 minutes left, Walter?" Tell me you have something. "John approached the assembled group of geniuses “our technicians are minutes away from re-establishing communication with the cubicles”.

"Once communications are established, Toby, your job is to talk to them and try to calm them down, if we stop them from slowing their breathing from fear, we'll have a few more minutes." Walter and Toby walked over to the technicians, Where John explained the process by which he had succeeded in establishing communications.

"Wow, if I weren’t a genius myself, I'd think you were," Toby said.

“Actually, for some people I am a genius, for others not” when he said the last words he looked at Walter “My IQ is 157, don’t say anything!” He told Paige, cuz she was going to talk “I know that compared to Walter, the geniuses with lower IQ looks like fools”.

"So do you know each other?" Paige asked. "A few years ago, I ran for a job at Scorpion," John said, "but it seems I wasn’t good enough for the job. Although I was never told what qualities were necessary.

"Loyalty, for example," Walter said, both Paige and Toby looked at each other, no one understood much what was going on there, not even the behaviorist, who was going to intervene, but Paige stopped him with her eyes.

"Well, I only see new faces." The manager abruptly changed the subject. "Where's Happy?" But he couldn’t hear the answer, for a woman in a white coat called him aside.

"Who’s that guy and why didn’t we know about him?" Toby asked as the man stepped away.

"He was tested on Scorpion for a while, and he didn’t agree with how Happy and I looked at things”.

"Happy and you?" Paige asked.

"It was before Sylvester joined, it was when Scorpion was just beginning, so he didn’t even have the garage, we worked where we could," Walter explained. "We didn’t think about generating money in large quantities, just enough, but he didn’t agree with that. He always wanted more”.

"And we kept that ideology to the end ... the day we met you, the electricity had been cut off because Sylvester lost the money we were going to take to pay for it," Toby told Paige, "I don’t know how we were not evicted before”.

“I have something!” said one of the technicians. "I have Dr. Silva on the phone." Toby ran and began to talk to the man. The psychiatrist resorted to every possible argument to help the man remain calm when he felt calm enough. The phone to Paige and urged her to continue talking to him.

"We have a problem," Toby called the team members present, "Dr. Silva was working on an explosive device whose detonator is a change in the components of the air around it, specifically in a significant increase in the amount of oxygen in the air”.

“According to his test to activate this pump it needs a 300% increase of oxygen” Sylvester read the document quickly in his computer “is something that wouldn’t naturally occur, therefore there would be no risk of an accidental activation.

-But in this case the oxygen is reduced to a very low percentage, when we open an entrance in the cubicle, oxygen inevitably enters in seconds and in just 5 seconds the amount of oxygen will have quadrupled, activating the bomb"

“Toby, go back to him and find out all about the bomb downstairs," Walter said.

“Guys!” Happy's voice was heard on the intercom, surprising the geniuses “we can reach zone B through the air conditioning ducts, the wiring that connects the ducted doors, can be connected to an extender, this way the alarm won’t be activate, we can take the scientists out there without risk, only that the pipelines go from zone A, so we would have to go down and then go up eight meters through the pipelines”.

“How do you climb eight meters of duct?” Sylvester asked.

"Have you just met me?" Said Happy repeating a question he had asked her on the Mexican border months ago.

“Happy ... where is Cabe?” Walter asked.

"He ... he's busy," Happy said. "I heard something about a bomb.

”Yes, Sylvester is sending you the information we found in Dr. Silva's reports," said Walter.

"According to this, the pump is activated at the time of the increase of oxygen, but it does not explode immediately, a timer is activated," said Happy “ask him how much is the timer and how much is the explosive charge”

"Hi Happy," Paige said, "I'm glad to know you're okay”.

"Why would not I be okay?" Happy's voice sounded confused.

"Maybe because you left for two weeks, saying nothing, and you didn’t answer our calls, you could have been dead in a ditch and we unknowingly and now you just appear from nowhere and talking about the case," said Paige annoyed, Walter and Sylvester just looked at her and Toby muttered something that sounded like "mama bear is angry"

"If I'd been dead in a ditch, how was I supposed to call?" Said Happy confused, "the garage phone and Toby's number are my emergency contacts, if anything had happened to me they would have known."

"Am I your emergency contact?" Toby asked with a smile, he hoped she would make some logical argument or have him shut up, but none of that happened, only the silence was heard.

"Well, Sylvester and I will keep trying to force the software, Happy will keep you posted until you get here, meanwhile send me a list of what you need to get into Zone B," Walter said before shutting down the communications. For the next few minutes it was all work, Toby was still trying to get as much information as possible from the frightened man and passed the information to Happy and Walter through messages, the security team was still trying to establish communication with the two groups of scientists who They were in zone B, but they could not establish communication; Another small group of men set about getting the list of implements that Happy asked to be able to enter the pipelines.

"Mr. Willis! We have a problem with Agent Gallo and Miss Quinn” a soldier rushed into the room and spoke to the man, Miss Cooper came to learn the problem with the members of his team; the three quickly left the laboratory.

"What about Happy and Cabe?" Paige asked, but no one answered, each of the geniuses kept working on their tasks, until ten minutes later the door opened and through it entered Mark Willis rubbing his wrist, after him a soldier who had a bruise that stretched for much of the left side of his face, the man seemed very annoyed, next to him walked the Deputy Director of National Security, who came with a serious countenance, however Toby could see in her gestures that she was having fun. And at the end of the group came Cabe and Happy who was followed by a young girl, her blue skirt standing out in the opaque colors of the laboratory, she took hold of Happy's hand, who was trying to walk slower to keep the girl going.

"Happy! Said Toby, and like the rest of the team he left what he was doing to approach them.

“Who is...? Are they your friends?” The girl asked, in what was meant to be a whisper.

"Yes, they are my friends," said Happy looking at the girl, and without looking at his colleagues and began to introduce them. "They are Walter, Toby and Sylvester ..."

"Are they also geniuses? Like you and me?” She asked quietly, looking at the three men staring at her in shock.

"Hi, I'm Paige." She noticed that the presentations were not getting along very well to Happy, she was visibly uncomfortable, she approached the girl and knelt in front of her “and he is Tim, not two of us are geniuses” she clarified “ What’s your name?”

"I'm Elizabeth Danielle Harper Quinn," said the girl before Happy could even open her mouth, everyone present opened her eyes wide as they listened to the girl's surnames, "but everyone call me Lizzy, I'm 5 years old, but in 172 days I will be 6 years old.

"She's ... my daughter," Happy said suddenly. Paige let out a small moan of surprise, while Toby and Sylvester stared at her in disbelief, the geniuses were so surprised they couldn’t make a word; they just looked at each other while their always fast brains try to process the information.

“Excuse me? I think I heard you wrong," Toby said. "I thought you said she was your daughter”.

"You heard her well," Cabe said, since the genius seemed annoying, and the increase in the volume of his voice was a clear indication of it, Happy also realized this and seemed more than willing to respond in the same tone and a fight wasn’t something they needed at that time, they already had enough problems.

"We'll talk later," Happy said, grabbing Lizzy and leading her to an empty table, where she set her laptop down and started searching for something in the browser while reviewing her mental list of what to do. "Listen to me," she said. The girl, who was distracted looking around, and as Alex had said, made sure that the girl looked at her when she spoke “I must work, Cabe will stay here with you” at hearing his name the man approached they; Happy found the program she was looking for and started it, she connected the headsets and put them to the girl “Cabe, don’t let her leave that program, if she go to some page or something of the system that you don’t know, let me know”.

"She probably knows more about computing than I do," Cabe said as he sat down next to the girl and assumed internally that his role in that case was to babysit.

"What does a five-year-old girl do on a government base?" Katherine asked the man, as soon as Happy had left, unlike Scorpion's team, she had not heard the presentations, was too busy trying to keep the soldier from charging Happy for beating him, the poor man only obeyed orders when prevented entry with the girl; finally Mark Willis had to give a formal authorization for the entry of the little girl, he was forced to let her in as Happy threatened to leave, and Cabe explained the importance of the engineer in the mission.

"There was not enough time to find a babysitter," Cabe said. Remembering the great surprise that took when he arrived at the place indicated by the GPS.

_Fifty-seven minutes earlier._

_Cabe Gallo walked through an elegant neighborhood of San Francisco, began to think that Happy had lied to him, probably she had hacked the GPS or something like that; Since the girl had disappeared he had preferred not to think about where she might be and much less wanted to imagine the reasons that had led the girl to leave like this,_ _however he didn’t expect a place like that, it was an elegant neighborhood, big houses and expensive cars. Thinking he would find himself disappointed, he walked to the place that indicated on his cell phone. In front of him stood a large three-storey house whose facade was neatly painted a pastel color, had a large green garden; Definitely that didn’t look like a place where he would be happy, but he rang the doorbell one, two, three times and no one left, again corroborated that it was the place that marked the GPS and this time he decided to call Happy, but nothing happened, she didn’t answer._

_After that he decided to return to the area 51. When he was speeding through a commercial district he saw the well-known Happy´s truck parked outside a coffeehouse, checked the patent twice before convincing himself that if it was the right one, he parked abruptly at the entrance of the coffeehouse and entered quickly, catching the attention of all the customers of the place._

_“Cabe?” he heard his name and when he turned around he saw Happy, who was sitting in the far corner, eating a hamburger; the leather jacket she wore and her rough look, didn’t fit with the usual customers of that place._ _"You're a genius, and you don`t know how to answer your phone," he scolded her, she only pointed out that he wasn’t carrying with her “we don’t have time, we have to go”._

_“What? go where?” Happy asked as she followed Cabe out of the room, regretting the three-quarters of hamburger she still had. “To the area 51, we have a case ... We’ll go in my car, then we can send someone to pick up your truck” it takes a few seconds to realize that the girl was no longer following him_

_“I can’t go”._

_"What do you mean, I can’t go?"_

_“I can’t go! ... I'm sorry” - Happy took a step back, away from Cabe, when she saw him enter the cofeehouse she thought he was only doing the routine visit with which he had threatened her, for her head never passed the option that he would fetch her._

_"There are eight men trapped in zone B of Area 51 ..." Cabe proceeded to explain the case quickly to Happy and emphasized the lives that were in danger._

_"If I go, I have to take someone with me," said Happy finally, she stared at Cabe as she waited for an answer from him, her heart beating fast, during those days she had preferred not to think, cowardly she had focused on anything, Scorpion and especially had tried to keep her mind away from a certain psychiatrist. She had to tell them about Lizzy sooner rather than later, it didn’t matter if it was in a few minutes or in the middle of a case or in a few weeks in the garage._

_"I don’t think they'll let your husband in without proper permission, and…”_

_“I'm not talking about Alex." Happy turned and started walking, Cabe understood it as an invitation to follow her, and lamented that the generally uncommunicative girl now had something to say, right now, in the worst of times. They walked to a ballet academy, Cabe had to look twice at the sign to be sure, the genius walked to one of the rooms and showed Cabe a group of dancing girls “See the girl in blue?” She asked, he immediately picked up the little girl who was in the third place in the line, unlike the rest of her classmates, whose clothes were white or pink, her dress was blue and she clearly had difficulty keeping up with the dance; He observed the little girl and couldn’t help the little girl reminded someone, the way she seemed to be concentrated and boring, her asians features and curly black hair reminded Happy… “she’s my daughter” ._

_"What did you just say, kid?"_

_“Mom!” The girl interrupted Cabe's thoughts; she had left the line and ran towards them._

_"Long story," Happy said, shifting the focus of her attention from the man to the girl who had stopped right in front of her. "Lizzy, I just got called from work, I have to go back ... it's important”._

_"I thought you'd stay with me longer." She couldn’t help feeling something inside her break when she saw the girl's eyes in tears._

_"Alex talked to you, right?" he should have done it, he couldn’t wait for her to talk to the girl, he knew her well enough to know that they were not given that sort of thing._

_“About that he will go to heaven and that's why I should live with you now?”_

_“Okay”, Happy thought, Yes, he had talked to her._

_"But I can’t stay here, so you'll have to come with me," Happy said, she didn’t know what kind of response she expected from the child, during the days when she was alone with her, she had been surprised to see the similarity which was to her as well as seeing how effusive and explosive Lizzy was sometimes, she reminded Toby, always spoke more than due, however when she concentrated on something of her interest she stayed calm and worked in silence for hours , just like her, or Sylvester or Walter; Alex had been right after all, the girl was a genius._

_"Shall we travel on a plane?"_

_“I like airplanes” a smirk on her lips, it was definitely not the answer she expected "And the helicopters? Do you like them too? "_

_“I can get one," Cabe said._

_"Lizzy, he is Cabe." Happy made the formal introductions as he ran to her truck to pick up her tools._

_"Are you my mother's friend?" "That was the first of many questions Lizzy asked Cabe, while they were traveling by helicopter, Happy focused on finding a solution to the case and it was Cabe's job to distract the child._

Back to the area 51 labs

"Really, Happy? a daughter?” Toby said as Happy and Walter analyzed the planes lying on a table, he had both hands resting on the table and recharged all his weight in them, and occasionally he ran one of his hands through his hair; he was trying hard to not deviate from the case, but it was costing more than he wanted.

“Toby, now it’s not the time," Walter said.

"I need some air," said the psychiatrist, slamming the table and then turned and left the lab.

"Once inside Zone B, I'll use the lock to create a hole in the cubicles, the last one to be opened will be that of Dr. Silva." Happy went on to explain the plan, at first glance she seemed not to have noticed the abrupt exit of her partner.

"In this way we reduce the possible number of dead in case we can’t deactivate the explosive in time. According to the data that Toby obtained, once the amount of oxygen in the air increases by 300% of its capacity, the countdown will start, which will be 30 seconds”.

“Happy do you think you can turn off the bomb in 30 seconds? Walter asked "I won’t know until I can see it, it's just a prototype."

"Then it may not burst or work?" Cooper asked. "it will, if Silva says so, it will be." John Benson rejoined the team, he had to leave the lab a few minutes ago. "How do you pretend to get into the cubicles?"

"With this," said Happy, displaying a detonator the size of a cookie-the explosive charge is manipulable, and with my knowledge of explosive devices and Sylvester's calculations we will succeed in breaking it without completely damaging the physical integrity of the cubicles and preventing it from damaging any area that can start a self-destruct process”.

"Oh Happy, as smart as ever," said John, smiling. "Where's the shrink? I need him to see some safety recordings”.

"Toby, his name is Toby," Happy corrected.

“I'm here!” The man appeared walking briskly, without saying anything, and went to the security technicians.

“Didn’t you have something to show Toby?” Said Walter, seeing that the man did not move from where he was; John said goodbye to the three geniuses with a nod and went after the Psychiatrist. "Walter doesn’t like John, does he?" Sylvester asked Paige in a whisper, which was noisier than he intended, and as he parted from her colleague, he noticed Happy and Walter's gaze on him.

Minutes later the team was prepared to go down to Area A, Paige had relieved Cabe by taking care of Lizzy, so he could get down with Happy, Walter, Toby and John, for security reasons they had evacuated Zone A and in area C-the area where they were originally-were prepared to evacuate in seconds in case Happy couldn’t deactivate the bomb. "Which was not an option, or they would also die," Paige recalled.

"I'll go first," Happy said as she put the harness on the quick-drying cement tube, it would create a ladder to climb through the air-conditioning tubes, so that the others could follow her. It took longer than she'd thought, it was difficult, she thought that those sedentary days, while she was eating everything in the fridge, at Alex's house, were passing the bill. When she reached the window, she asked Toby to come up with the tools, the genius did it in an absolute and unusual silence, every word that came out of his mouth was strictly related to the case and even though she was the first in telling him that he talked too much, she felt extremely uncomfortable with that silence and wanted to do something to change it, but according to her personality, she just kept saying nothing.

“It’s done!” Happy said as soon as she had finished spreading the cables and letting the entrance free, she and Toby counted the seconds to see if she had succeeded or not. Zone B seemed broader than it really was, the cubicles were adapted with the best in technology. "Even the coffeemaker has more class than our garage," Toby said, looking around the room. "Why do they have great things while we work in a garage that falls apart? We are some of the smartest people in the world”. "They didn’t lose a painting of thousands of dollars." They heard Cabe's voice on the intercoms, he was agitated by the effort to climb the pipelines, nor flooded or bombarded government facilities, had no subordination problems, nor enmity with various government organizations. "He has a point," Walter said, who was up a few steps above Cabe.

"Don’t you know how to follow orders?" John said, who being with Tim, who would be hosting the scientists in Zone A, was also using a intercom “great surprise”.

"Happy! "Paige said quietly, like if that would prevent the whole team from listening.

“What?”.

"Lizzy wants to talk to you." After that, they could hear her take off hers intercom.

“Mom?”

"Here I am," Happy said as she began to run a scanner through one of the cubicles with the windows polarized, looking for a wireless area wide enough to pop it and get the people trapped. Toby did the same with the other.

"I want to go to the bathroom," the girl whispered.

“Ask Paige to take you”.

“But ..." Lizzy hesitated before she fell silent.

"Hi Lizzy!" Toby said when he saw that Happy didn’t know how to respond, the children were transparent, and just hearing her voice he was able to see that the child didn’t feel confident, although when they were up there she had shown no signs of missing Happy’s presence to her side “I'm Tobías, I'm a friend of your… …” he wasn’t able to pronounce that word “I'm Happy’s friend”.

“Are you the one with the funny hat?"

“Sometimes they call it “fool, stupid and even ugly hat”” Toby tried to get Lizzy to relax “but they had never called it funny, we both thank you. Do you see the guy in Super Fun Guy's T-shirt?” he wait long enough for the girl to locate him “His name is Sylvester, and he couldn’t come down here with us, because he must try to regain control of the software that will open the doors and give us computer support ... Can I tell you a secret?” he paused melodramatically, while Cabe and Walter entered the laboratory “he is also afraid” he ignored the reproach of the genius “he is alone up there with unknown people in a place where he had never been and also wants to go to the bathroom, after all peeing is something completely natural, because otherwise our body will retain liquids and swell ... and explode”.

"It wouldn’t explode," Lizzy said.

“Okay, it wouldn’t explode, but you could get sick,”, Toby watched as Happy placed the first explosive and she and Walter tried to communicate with the people inside using the morse code, so that they would move away from the wall that would explode “ what were we talking about?” Toby asked, pretending that he had lost the thread of the conversation, it was a way of knowing if he had caught the girl's attention.

"That Sylvester is afraid” everyone could hear the boy's protest. Not only the girl was entertained by Toby's distraction. “True! He’s also alone up there, and he also needs to go to the bathroom, maybe you and Paige can accompany him so he doesn’t feel alone on the way”.

"I don’t need to go to the bathroom," Sylvester protested.

"With all the liquid you've drunk, I think so, kid," Cabe said. "Or you'll end up peeing in your pants," Toby said.

"Again," he added, recalling the small accident in the astronaut's suit. “Okay, I'll be back in a few minutes .... and Toby, you will pay for this” both Sylvester and Paige cut off the communications.

"Thank you Doc," Happy said, not looking away from the explosive, she waited for him to respond, but he didn’t, he continued to submerge in his silent state. "Okay." Happy activated the explosive and in seconds the small bomb exploded, leaving a hole in the wall, Cabe and Walter pulled out the four men who were trapped there and told them how to get out of the room while Happy and Toby hit the wall of the second cubicle, the explosive, when John confirmed that the men were already climbing to zone A, Happy activated the detonator, and seconds later a second explosion was heard, they repeated the procedure to put the men safe. "We've saved seven of the eight men," Cabe said.

"Cabe you and Toby go up to Area A," Walter said. "Happy and I will take care of this.

  
“Walter is right, it’s unnecessary that we are the four here below, we only increase the problems in case something goes wrong” Happy support. “I'll stay!” Toby said stubbornly, he was already there anyway and they couldn’t force him out.

"Okay, Happy, once the hole in the wall of the cubicle opens, it will take five seconds to activate the bomb, and we have 30 seconds since then," Walter repeated.

"That if we don’t touch a wire or circuit and the system starts the process of self-destruction," said Toby. "No pressure," Paige said, and the three geniuses in Zone B frowned.

“Okay” Happy stood in front of the wider wall of the cubicle and made mental calculations for the best position, she placed it quickly and without much thought activated it. Two seconds later she entered the cubicle through the hole caused by the explosion.

"Not good," she said.

“What happens?” Asked Walter, peeking through the hole, and he got a great impression when he saw the scientist in his chair, his neck cut from side to side and all his white gown stained with blood.

"He must have hours in there." Toby's head popped up beside Walter in the hole.

“Guys? What about the bomb?” Sylvester reminded them. Happy approached the bomb, trying to ignore the pool of blood at her feet.

"Again, this is not good," Happy said, looking at the bomb, it was an advanced engineering device, and there was no way to stop the countdown.

"Twenty-five seconds," Cabe recalled. “Happy get out of there” Toby said reaching out to help her out, she didn’t refuse his help, and once again she was out of the cubicle, the four looked in every direction looking for a way out.

"The bomb will destroy the cubicle and activate the mechanism of self-destruction," Walter said.

“I have it! I have it!” Sylvester shouted. "I'm in control of zone B, it will take a few minutes to regain control of the doors, but I'm deactivating the self-destruct order already.

"Okay Sly, but here we have a bomb about to explode and burn the whole area, we can’t get out.

“15 Seconds”.

“Here!” Walter shouted, pointing to the second cubicle to which they had made an impromptu entrance, all quickly entered the hole, two seconds later they heard a great rumble and before they could fall to the ground, the blast wave of the explosion sent them in different Directions. In a matter of seconds unbearable heat enveloped them and the cubicle began to fill with smoke. The last thing Happy heard on her communicator was Lizzy calling her.

Four hours later the three geniuses were discharged from the hospital, Cabe had been the only one to save them unharmed. Walter and Toby had a couple of wounds on their heads, they hadn’t been able to react when they were thrown and had received the whole blow to the head, Happy on the other hand, had been thrown against the wall, which had not caused more damage, But her smaller lungs had breathed more smoke than the others, and the doctors had not wanted to release her until they were sure she was fine; and the four had lost some of their hearing momentarily. Now they were all in the garage, only Sylvester and Lizzy were missing.

"Where's Lizzy?" Happy asked without looking at anyone in particular, but looking at Paige and Katherine. "She's with Sylvester, when the bomb exploded, that felt all over Area A and she kept asking about you, when the rescue teams came down, when they got them out and she made sure you were okay, she agreed to go for a walk with Sylvester” explained Paige, who along with the woman of national security, had had to take care of the procedures in the hospital.

"By the way, Miss Quinn, would you be so kind to tell us where a five-year-old appears?" When Happy was about to reply, probably something obvious, “in your background doesn’t say anything about a daughter”.

"That's what we all want to know," Toby said, his voice sounding harsher than he intended “first a husband and now a daughter”.

“The circumstances in which Lizzy hadn’t been with me so far or why I hadn’t told of her are with anybody, it’s not matters of national security," Happy said firmly, as she dialed the Sylvester number on her phone.

"What about us?" Toby asked annoyed “ It’s not your friends' business? I thought there were no secrets here in Scorpion, I thought we were family, you always boast of being an open book”.Toby was practically shouting now.

"Toby," Walter warned, approaching his friend, he was just as surprised as anyone, and even though he was considered a person with few or no emotions, he was hurt. Was he so bad as a friend? , he knew Happy almost ten years ago, together they had raised Scorpion and had supported each other in the past, she had probably needed their support, team support in the past and had not trusted them enough on him to ask for it.

"You hid a pregnancy from us; you practically hid from us for nine months." He controlled his voice so as not to shout, he was aware of the scandal he was making, he knew that Cabe and Walter were prepared to stop him in case the situation it slipped out of his hands. Paige had been in shock for a few seconds, but she reacted in time to try to distract the deputy director, without much success. "You didn’t trust us ... you didn’t trust me." he approached Happy and took her by the shoulders, at least say something.

"I have nothing to say," Happy said. "I’m aware of the decisions I have made and the consequences they have had.

"You said you didn’t want to have babies” the anger he felt at that moment, immediately turned to sadness “I suppose you didn’t want to have them with me, who is the father? Because your husband is not, who is he? Walter? John?" Stop there! His brain screamed at him, but he didn’t listen “because he was the ex-boyfriend with whom you used the fake blood and the retractable knife. I realized as soon as he saw you in the lab and by the way he pronounced your name when he asked for you. Oh, it could be Collins!” - he looked for a signal, a reaction from Happy that will indicate if any of them was the father, but there was no signal, she knew his intentions, and she was not ready to fall in his game; Over the years she had learned not to let herself read so easily “you didn’t trust us enough to tell us something so important”.

“Trust? This is not about trust," Happy said. "You don’t remember what Scorpion was like then." Walter couldn’t help feeling embarrassed at Happy's words, of course he remembered, they never forgot “do you remember where you were a lot of the time? How many times did you end up in a hospital? How many beatings did they give you? Walter and Collins spent half their time murmuring abstract theories, spent hours and hours locked in their minds, and Sylvester, do you remember how he feared his own shadow? Do you remember when Collins got into his head and had a crisis of panic and he started scratching his hands? And me? Let's not talk about myself ... Scorpion was a disaster, Scorpion had nothing to offer a new member, I had nothing to offer Lizzy. Whether you knew it or not, it wouldn’t have made a difference. You can’t…” but Happy couldn’t keep talking since the door opened and Sylvester and Lizzy entered, the girl when she saw her, ran to her.

“What happened here?” Sylvester stared at the tense faces.

"We were just talking," Toby said before leaving the garage, he felt a twinge of guilt at ignoring the little one, but at that moment he needed to release tension and he knew where to go.

“Mom!”

“Hey!” Said Happy with mock enthusiasm, everyone present noticed, except the little one.

“We went to a park and there were people from all countries, spoke many languages! ”Happy was caught by the words of the child and for almost an hour she hear her talk about every word she had learned in other language, she also talk about the new jacket that Sylvester had bought her since hers had been littered with ice cream. Cabe and Tim ended up leaving the garage, not without saying goodbye to the girl and promising to see her to finish talking about what they had been talking about in area 51; Walter looked at Happy in the distance, despite Happy's clumsy and monotonous performance, Lizzy seemed to enjoy her presence; Sylvester and Paige worked together on the report on what happened in Area A, the second looked sideways at Happy and her daughter; still doesn’t assume the idea of Happy as a mother, and didn’t know if the child was there to stay forever.

"Is she a genius, too?" Paige asked Sylvester.

"It's difficult to know at that age, but her ability to capture and memorize new information is unusual," he said. "In the square we saw people from eight different nationalities, she could identify and understand practically every language, basic things like greetings, common questions, colors and other things, but for a girl of that age is something surprising”.

"Ralph wasn’t like that at that age, he was always self-absorbed, he didn’t talk, he didn’t communicate, he just stayed in his world," Paige said, unable to stop an air of nostalgia from inviting her to remember how dark those days had been for her, When she sometimes cried for hours because she couldn’t communicate with her son, she wondered if she was the one to blame for his developmental delay.

“Every human being is different, the geniuses are human, Happy, Toby, Walter, Ralph and I are very different, but we share common characteristics." he was silent as Happy got up to pick up her things, Lizzy followed her. close. He had to admit that it had been nice to spend time with the girl, at least when he wasn’t afraid of losing her - and that Happy killed him for it - and he liked the idea of a new member in Scorpion.

"O'Brien, I need the company car," she said to Walter as she adjusted her bag. "I left my truck in San Francisco”.

”We're going to a hotel," Lizzy said.

“A hotel?” Sylvester asked.

"My mom has explosive or potentially dangerous materials in her apartment, so she can’t take me there." The two geniuses and Paige stared at the girl and then at Happy.

“I signed a custody agreement, and point number 12 says I can’t have potentially dangerous ... or illegal materials in the place where she lives”.

“Custody agreement? So she stays with you”, Paige asked.

"Yes." she turned her attention back to Walter. "The keys?"

"You can stay in my apartment," Sylvester suddenly said. "I can sleep on the couch, it's perfectly clean and tidy, and they can stay until you clean your place."

“Okay”, Happy said without objection, she hated having to check into a hotel anyway. Sylvester ran for his things so they could leave.

“Happy!” Walter called when she was about to leave the garage. "Whatever is not legal, don’t bring it to the garage."

“Okay!” But he knew she would ignore his words. When he was alone in the garage he searched for "know-it-all" between his contacts and dialed, again and again, but he got no response.

Hours later, with Lizzy finally asleep, Happy began to work on her case report. Though her mind inevitably strayed from the subject, Toby's disapproving gaze returned to her mind, and she wanted to have been brave enough to go after him, to explain to him, to tell him what had happened, but again her way of being or her software as the psychiatrist called it, had prevented her from doing so. The noisy vibration of her phone took her out of her thoughts. "I'm Sofia Rodriguez and I'm calling from San Martin Hospital, we're trying to locate a relative of Mr. Tobias Curtis, he's in E.R."


	6. Lizzy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> N / A: This chapter contains lemon scenes (scenes not suitable for minors under 18) if they do not like scenes of this type should only skip that part.  
> I would like to know your opinion about the story.

The map of the city was spread out on the garage table, Sylvester glanced at it and marked some points on it, then stretched out a few lines between them and made mental notes; a few feets away, Toby was concentrating on annotations while reading some files on his computer, next to them were some open books, which he consulted from time to time, his face was still a little swollen by the beating he had received a couple of days ago and his body still resented when he moved with rudeness.  
“Hey!” they both raised their heads to see Ralph enter the garage, brought with him his new telescope and the toolbox that Happy had given him.

"Walter’s upstairs," Toby pointed out, knowing that the boy was eager to work on his new project, since he had returned from the mini vacation with his father he had taken every minute to be with his mentor, and Walter was more than willing to pass time with him.

"Do we have a case?" Paige stepped into the garage immediately behind her son, not surprised that Ralph had gone upstairs immediately "No, it's a personal project," Sylvester said quickly, avoiding his gaze and causing the woman's suspicion.

"Happy asked us for help finding a suitable school for Lizzy”.

"Toby!" Sylvester yelled, the genius just shrugged and went ahead with his own, leaving the young woman to explain. "I did a study of all the colleges in the area, I'm reviewing school crash statistics, as well as considering the structure of the establishments and their strategic location, while Toby is in charge of studying the educational methods applied in the schools and of studying those who would be the future teachers of Lizzy. Having all this information we can conclude what will be the best school for her”

 "That's ... efficient." Paige walked over and looked at the map on the table, where a red circle pointed to a school, and inside a big blue circle were the garage and Happy's apartment. “It’s nice that you're helping with this, why didn’t you want to tell me Sly?”

  
“Happy believes that you would say something like” Toby coughed a few times to clear his throat. "The best way is to go directly to each school and know the place and the teachers, not everything is facts and statistics" Toby said making an almost perfect imitation of the blond woman.

  
"I don’t talk like that," she reproached the genius, who only stared at her to annoy her. "But ... maybe it would be good for Happy to visit the schools in person before making a decision ... How are you, Toby?" Sly wrote me telling me what happened.

“You’re a gossip!”

"Sylvester was just worried about you, that's what friends do," Paige said, "at least you don’t look as bad as I expected"

“Thank you?”

“He had a pretty little nurse over the weekend”, Sylvester said. "Happy, Lizzy and I went to see him the weekend”.

“Did Lizzy take care of you? That's adorable". She couldn’t help but feel tenderness as she imagined the scene.

“I actually made the mistake of teaching her my medical briefcase, I explained about each instrument, it’s function and how it was used," Toby explained. "and she definitely learns fast ... she spent all weekend taking temperature, pressure, checking my ears and my eyes .... and besides that little gnome, stole my medical briefcase!” He exclaimed annoyed, though Sylvester laughed and Paige joined him.

"You're just angry by the beating she gave you at the chess game," Sylvester said, still laughing.

"I’m ... she cheated!" Toby exclaimed offended, Happy and Sylvester had mocked him all weekend “I didn’t know that she really knew how to play, she may be a genius, but she is still five years old and her ability to concentrate is ... of a ... of a squirrel. By the time I realized that she wasn’t moving pieces randomly she had me in check”.

"so, this means, she didn’t cheat, she just took advantage of your ignorance," Paige said.

"Who took advantage of Toby?" Walter asked, coming down the stairs.

"A five year old girl Paige said in response.

"Oh." Walter didn’t know what else to say. "Where's Happy?"

"she was going to take the little gnome to an audition in a ballet academy," Toby said, returning to what he was doing.

"Okay, when she came, tell her to come up," he said before returning to his project with Ralph.

"How are you doing?" Paige asked, approaching Toby.

"It's not the first time I've been beaten," he said, "but it's the first time someone stabbed me, but it was superficial, so there's no problem”.

“I’m not talking about the beating” Paige looked at Sylvester looking for some support, but this one just looked confused and after a few seconds returned to his task on the map “I mean Happy ... and her daughter. It’s normal that you are confused with all this, not even I understand very well what happened. Of all the things I thought she could hide. I never imagined such a thing”

“ Welcome to the surprised club!” Toby exclaimed.

“What club?” Both of them turned to see the girl enter the garage, she was wearing a doctor's robe and under it they could see something like a tutu, in one of her hands was Toby's doctor's briefcase, which seemed larger than It really was, and in the other it carried a large glass of juice; a few seconds later, Happy arrived, her tool bag in one hand and a giant cup of coffee in the other. What club were you talking about? the child insisted.

"No one, kid, it was just a saying" Toby explained.

“How was the audition?” Sylvester asked Happy.

“Very good! I danced my favorite song and the teacher said that I did it very well”, the girl replied walking to her favorite patient, Toby.

"You don’t look very happy?" Paige asked Happy.

"Why shouldn’t I be? I'll spend two hours of my week with a lot of mothers watching a group of girls dance ... it's all I've ever wanted”, she added sarcastically before throwing her tool bag to her desk.

"Welcome to motherhood!" Paige exclaimed, she was going to add something else, but Happy's gaze invited her to remain silent.

"Where is O'Brien?" I have to talk to him. Happy looked at his boss's desk, the two geniuses pointing toward the stairs. “Okay ... Sylvester, could you…” He looked at the genius and then at Lizzy and he understood what she meant.

"I’ll see her ... although she's entertaining with Toby, so I don’t think she'll cause any trouble”, Sylvester said with a laugh, watching Toby as he was harassed by the girl, who was trying to see his wounds and perform the respective cures and although he wasn’t very happy with the attention he received, he corrected the child every time she made any erroneous comment. Happy went upstairs to find Ralph and Walter watching intently a project related to a radio controlled mini-rocket; She watched them in silence for a few seconds until the boy noticed her presence.

"Happy!” Ralph said when he saw her. "Can you help us with this? We've tried to make it work, but there seems to be a problem in the circuits”.

"Of course, but …” Happy went to where they were and took the rocket in her hands to examine it “but first, could you go down for a few minutes?” The boy nodded and immediately went downstairs; leaving them the privacy that Happy was looking for to talk.

"Sylvester told me that he, you and Lizzy went to take care of Toby the past weekend," Walter said after she'd just watched the rocket.

"Yeah ... I got a call from the hospital telling me Toby was there," Happy said, remembering what had happened that night.

 _ **Three nights ago. ..**_.

_“Ouch! my pancreas!” The doctor looked annoyed at the genius. Toby hadn’t stopped complaining at all times, and had tried to tell him how to do his work, since he had worked in the ER he had heard drunken delusions, but so far he had never encountered one who claimed to be a genius who worked for the government. "If you stay still I can continue to do my work," he said patiently as he began to put the stitches to close the wound near the hip of the genius_

_“Is that a way to treat your patients? Don’t they teach you anything in medical school?” Toby felt humiliated, he had been unconscious in the casino after the beating he received and after that, the doctor in charge of him, was a recent graduate; He!, Dr. Tobias M. Curtis, a graduate of Harvard Medical School, was being cured by a beginner, who also had very bad temper._

_“Piece of beating that they gave to you Doc” the genius thought he was hallucinating, maybe alcohol or drugs, but the doctor looked in the same direction as him, so it couldn’t be a hallucination, Happy was there, she was the woman who was leaning against the door frame, she looked annoyed, very, very upset. "No, that’s not true," he tried to denied the undeniable. The doctor hoped that Happy would ask a question, but instead she just stood on the sidelines, watching silently and he could feel the man's body tensing, he had even stopped complaining._

_“Hey! Can you be a little more delicate? It's a person not a piece of cloth”, Happy exclaimed after a few minutes watching the man sew his partner's wound._

_“There are things that hurt more than a couple of points in a wound,.. that somebody break your heart for example!” He exclaimed wryly, Happy just rolled her eyes in response. An hour later Toby was discharged, and between complaints and groans he left the hospital with Happy, but refused to receive her help, she simply walked beside him to the parking lot, where he walked until one stop to take a taxi._

_"Don’t be an idiot," Happy said as soon as she realized his intentions. "I'll get my truck and you better wait right here. Okay?”. The trip to Toby's apartment was absolutely in silent. Happy hadn’t opened her mouth, but the psychiatrist knew she was upset, probably the person who told her he was in the hospital, had also made sure to tell her that they had found him unconscious in the gates of a casino._

_"Won’t you help me up my apartment?" He asked once Happy had parked in his building._

_“Early, you didn’t want my help, you could do everything alone” Happy repeated the words with which he had previously rejected her help in the hospital; However she got out of the truck and helped him get off his, she put his arm over her shoulders, to help him keep his balance, the guy is really hurt, she thought._

_“Please can you slow down?, In case you don’t remember I was stabbed and beaten a couple of hours ago” Happy stopped completely, inhaled and exhaled deeply before continuing the road, Toby wasn’t making this easier, he was practically a dead weight of 150 pounds loading all his weight against her and she suspected that more than by pain he was doing it for pleasure._

_"Couldn’t you have looked for a place in a building with an elevator?" Happy complained when they had already climbed three floors, and they were taking four times more than normal._

_“When you came to hang out with me that didn’t bother you or maybe it did bother you and you also hid it for me” ¡Count to ten!, ¡remember that he’s hurt!, ¡No, you can’t throw him down the stairs! were thoughts that flooded Happy’s mind as they continued up the stairs, she just ignored the genius until they reached his apartment._

_“Go to bed and …”she was going to say that she would bring water, medicines and something to eat, but as always, he didn’t let her continue "Is that a dirty proposition?"_

_“It’s not ! I was trying to be nice, but I see you don’t need it”._

_"Yes, I do," Toby said, raising his arms exaggeratedly and pointing to each of his wounds._

_“You should have thought that before going to that damn casino” she watched him before continuing “Cabe was right, people don’t change”._

_“Are you seriously angry with me?" He questioned her; Happy just turned around and started away from him, when she had reached the door to leave, she felt how Toby pushed her against the wall, leaving her trapped between his body and the wall, Toby didn’t say anything, he just stood watching her "You asked me to stop gambling ... and I did it! I gave you everything I could give you, I gave you and I opened my heart to you and you ... You broke it! ... You didn’t trust me!” He was going to pull away from her when he was pulled down a few inches, and before he understood what was happening, Happy was kissing him, God! How he missed her lips!, for a few seconds he allowed himself to enjoy the moment, he put his hands on her hips and began to raise his hands under her jacket, passing gently around her waist, looking for her breasts and allowed to touch the edge of her mountains, then he brought his hands to hers shoulders and then he gently pushed her with the intention of pushing her away; when happy realized what he was doing, he took her body even closer to him, a bit more strongly than necessary his lips to force him to allow the passage of her tongue, deepening the kiss, she brought her hands to his hair to prevent him from moving away. It took exactly seven seconds to Toby lose his will to try to push her away, instead he pushed her roughly against the wall and brought his hands to her ass to raise her and make her hold him with her legs, causing their more intimate parts to be in contact and even with the clothes in the middle, the friction brought them to a higher level of pleasure; Toby brought his hands to her back and began to caress her with desperation. He stopped kissing her, to bring his lips to her neck, where he kissed bite and licked until he was fed, he lifted her a little more so that his lips stayed at the height of her breast, he crouched searching his lips for her breasts, above the shirt she was bringing “fuck it!” he exclaimed and with his hands he broke the garment, revealing what he so anxiously sought. “Hey!” Happy moaned to see her shirt split in two, but she couldn’t help letting out a curse when she felt the teeth of the genius biting her nipple, it was a soft bite, then stroked the little button with his tongue “what did you say?” He looked at her mockingly from his position, but she paid no attention to him, she had her eyes closed tightly and bit her lower lip, allowing herself to enjoy the actions of the boy “Good!” he said when she couldn’t make a coherent answer, if she did, it meant that he wasn’t doing a good job, during the short time that they had been together, he had learned to know her physically, had known every hidden place in her body and discovered how to lead her to madness, he managed to make the girl stop thinking and just concentrate on feeling. Toby needed all the strength of will to separate from her, left her on the floor and without any delicacy lowered her pants, while she took off her boots, from below he watched her, she was blushing, with hair scrambled and nothing to cover her humanity, only covered by her socks and her always black panties, which adhered to their perfect forms, feeling a bit clumsy, more than normal, he began to run his hands down her thighs, to the edge of the intimate garment, where he began to run his fingers around the outline of that._

_"Are you going to do it today? Or do you need help?” Happy replied… in response the young man began to kiss the inside of her thigh, he slowly began to deposit more kisses as he climbed, until he reached to the point that called him, continued kissing on the cloth, until reaching the edge, where with his teeth he began to lower her underpants_

_“Okay, in my mind this was much better” he said when he realized that he couldn’t lower the garment with just his teeth._

_“Oh, come on!” Happy grunted, she swiftly tossed the garment away. "Just shut up”. Pulling his hair, she forced him to her feet, then kissed him again passionately as she brought her hands to his belt. She lowered the lock, the boxer and the pants came down, she came down too and gave him a look that tried to be innocent “we are lucky that it’s not cold here” she said mischievously, looking unashamedly at the man's manhood._

_"Very funny," he said, remembering the situation in which himself had said that joke, suddenly he felt the need to feel her close, to feel her warm body, to feel her pulse racing, he needed to feel her alive; ignoring her intention, he forced her to stand up and claimed her lips with ferocity again, toby began to guide her into the room, very clumsy because of the jeans tangled in his feet and too busy with his mouth and his hands to removing them… walking backwards, taking her with him, taking care not to stumble over a book lying on the floor when Happy put one hand between his legs, carrying her little fingers around his masculinity "Oh my God!" Toby thought before stumbling with her own feet, falling on the cold floor and taking her with him. “My Pancreas! "He complained as he received the blow of the female body falling on him._

_“If you wanted me to be on top you just had to say it” ignoring his complaints she settled on him, with her hand she guided the member to her entrance and keeping the psychiatrist's gaze she began to slide slowly “what did you say?” she asked, seeing that he no longer complained and instead had his eyes closed tightly._

_“You will end killing me!” He put his hands on her hips, begging for her to come down faster, he wanted to get into her all at once and so he did, ignoring the pain of his side, he raised his hips to perform his task, going to meet her and for the first time in a long time he was completely inside her again, buried his fingers in her soft flesh and began to set the pace, although it wasn’t necessary, after a while them both were able to know what the other wanted and both knew that this wasn’t time to be gentle.The room temperature rose quickly, as Happy's sighs grew louder, the first time they were together Toby was surprised that she was so quiet in privacy, there were no screams or loud moans, instead her breathing became heavier and more agitated, her eyes shone with lust and she constantly bit her own lip, biting, touching and scratching, the level of pressure she exerted increased to a level approaching climax; But as in that moment, where the position didn’t allow her to kiss the psychiatrist and move as she wished, with one of her hands she began to caress herself, in that little button of pleasure while the other hand remained attached to Toby’s. Toby kept his free hand firmly on her hip, she was the first to reach the climax and after the first spasms she fell exhausted on Toby's chest to catch her breath, but he didn’t let her, he took advantage of her carelessness and turned quickly, leaving Happy between he and the ground, without giving her time to process what happened, he kissed her again, passed a few seconds before she began to actively participate in the kiss,_   
_Her body still trembling from the recent orgasm and the ever faster and deeper thrusts of the genius didn’t help her, she crossed her legs on his back, to facilitate his access “Happy?” He asked, trying to get her attention, his breathing wasn’t helping at the moment of speaking “Are you still wearing protection?” It wasn’t something he would have wanted to ask at that time, but he wasn’t prepared for a nine-month surprise, he had enough of the small five-and-a-half-year surprise; When she nodded he felt free to continue, after a couple of thrusts he reached her peak of pleasure and dropped heavily on her._

_"Hey dummy! I can’t breathe!” Happy groaned_

_"I'm sorry." he used his own arms to support his weight so not to crush her, but without leaving his comfortable position on her. He kissed her again, but this time slowly, allowing himself to enjoy every second but the delicacy didn’t last more than a few seconds, again it was Happy who increased the intensity, without any help she guided one of the man's hands to her center, those fingers were not as clumsy as she had thought at the beginning._   
_Happy put her hands on the young man's shirt, while she was practically naked, he still had his shirt and jacket, she thought of asking him to take off his clothes, but for that he had to interrupt his work and she will kill him if he stopped, those fingers would make her touch the sky a second time that night; Happy began to caress his chest over his shirt, going through his abdominals to reach his hip, where she began to pass her hand under it, she felt his worked abdomen, boxing definitely helped him and “boy that helped!” she was about to continue her exploration when she noticed something viscous and warm on her hand, she was going to scold him for be a pig when she noticed the almost imperceptible smell that reached her nose, it was that blood?... was she smelling blood? for Toby's surprise, Happy got up quickly and ran to turn on the light; He looked at her in a worried and excited way, she was wearing only the tattered cloth that was left of her, her ponytail was a mess and her lips were swollen._

_“What's wrong?” Toby asked when she said nothing, she just came and knees in front of him and to their surprise the shirt had a big sticky stain of fresh blood; At Happy's attentive gaze, he took off his shirt, revealing the patch the doctor had given him in the hospital, covered with blood. "Oh, right! The indications of the doctor said that he shouldn’t make physical efforts to not open the wound” he said while removing the patch to check what he already knew, the wound had been opened and it was necessary to suture again._

_“How did you not realize it before ?! “Happy shouted to him, with her own hands were covered with blood, without dissimulation she cleaned them in the shirt that Toby had taken off._

_“I was busy!” He cried, looking at her with lewdness, and he cautiously stood up and began to walk toward his room, before the woman's watchful eyes “are you not going to help a wounded man?” He asked when he noticed she wasn’t following him._

_"You don’t seem to need any help," she cautiously approached, leaning against the door, watching him with one of his hands holding the patch on the wound and with the other looking for something in his closet, for almost a minute; until he took out a medicine cabinet and a medical briefcase, he took them to the bed where he took a small bottle and removed the patch, leaving the wound in sight, Happy made a grimace of disgust at the sight._

_"As I supposed," Toby said, pouring some of the liquid from the bottle into the wound, cleaning the blood, "the stitches were opened. You have to remove the stitches and suture it again”._

_"Ok, then do it." She folded her arms as he took some things out of his medicine cabinet and suitcase._

_"I need you to boil some water and disinfect this with steam," he said, holding out a stainless steel needle. Once Happy did the homework she returned to the room, while he waited for the boiling water to take advantage of the time to get dressed again, and when she entered she pretended not to notice the disappointed look of Toby when seeing at her; Carefully and using the proper gloves, he passed the thread through the needle, to then leave a new pair of latex gloves at his side “For you ... Who do you think will suture the wound?” Toby told happy when he saw that she was looking at the gloves with a clear question on her face._

_“What?! Are you crazy?! "_

_“You know perfectly well the answer to that question ... it’s not for you to ask silly questions," he said smugly and with great luck managed to dodge the book that Happy threw at him._

_“You are the doctor!, that’s your job”_

_"Sorry for not having long arms!" He exclaimed exaggeratedly as he showed that his hands didn’t reach the wound._

_"Then we'll go to the hospital again” after a few seconds of silence she added “it's your fault for going to that stupid casino”._

_“I'm not going to go to that idiot again!” Toby cried, deliberately ignoring the second sentence, he had to admit that it hurt to hear the reproach in her voice. Happy looked at him in annoyance, her fists tightly closed at her sides, she thought seriously about turning and leaving, but she couldn’t do it. Instead she walked to Toby's old phone, dialing Sylvester's number, who answered at the first ring, her worried voice came to the ears of the psychiatrist, who listened in silence, in a few words Happy explained that the doctor had suffered a minor setback that would delay her for a while, after that she asked the young man to verify that Lizzy was still asleep and on confirmation she cut off the call. “Why is Sylvester with your daughter?” He asked, trying to sound disinterested._

_"I have to prepare some things in my apartment before I can take her there", she said curtly as she put on the gloves, not without sighing dramatically._

_"So she's here to stay," Toby said to himself, not knowing what else to say. He left the needle with the thread in Happy's hand and lay back on the bed, giving her free access to the wound. "You just have to sew, that's all, imagine that there are two pieces of cloth you want to put together," he said when he saw that she didn’t move._

_“Just two pieces of cloth” she repeated herself as she drew the needle closer to the psychiatrist's skin, Happy inhaled deeply and holding her breath she gave the first stitch with the needle, the genius didn’t scream or complain, he just watched her work._

_“Why didn’t you tell us? ... Why didn’t you tell me?”_

_“Do you think this is a good time to talk?" Happy questioned him, as she guided the needle to the second point._

_“Any time is good to talk” there was no response to his words, Happy remained concentrated, it was costing more than she would have thought, the smell of blood and the open flesh were a constant distraction._

_"I was twenty weeks old when I found out”, she finally said, "until then I hadn’t even thought of that possibility. The day I found out, the doctor gave me the address of a clinic to fix the problem” she kept talking while Toby tried not to make any comments or moves to stop her “but I wasn’t able to do it, however” Happy paused considering the words to use “from the moment I decided to go ahead with the pregnancy I didn’t think about that again; All the time ... all the time I was aware of it, that she was growing inside of me, but I preferred not to think about it. One day in the garage, I could feel her move” Toby could see that a strange glow illuminated her gaze “and I began to become aware of everything that happened and then ... I got lost” Happy admitted without looking at him “I spent hours and hours trapped in my mind, I stopped eating and sleeping. Alex found me unconscious in my apartment, he took me to the hospital and at the time Lizzy was born” two more points there’s left to suture the wound completely. “I woke up in the hospital, it took me three days to realize that she was born, my brain didn’t process that information; on the third day Alex forced me to get up and dragged me to where she was; Lizzy was so small and crying in a way…” from the years Toby knew her, he had only heard her speak with such emotion when she talked about her projects, her creations._

_“Why…?” he dared to ask when she stopped talking, wanted to continue talking, for the first time she was opening to him; and hearing it was a good distraction, the smoothness and slowness with which Happy passed the needle through the flesh was causing him more pain than he expected, the ideal was to do it fast, but he didn’t want to make her more nervous explaining how to do it more efficiently._

_“Alex had much more than I to offer to her” it wasn’t necessary that he finish the question “and I don’t mean material things. He loved her from the second he saw her, he could offer her a home, stability, a family and unconditional love, things I couldn’t give her” ; Toby remembered her words that day on the roof, "stability and security" and his heart could only jump a little, was she then thinking about her daughter and ... them? "And now I know I did the right thing."_

_Finally, she finished suturing the wound and without Toby saying a word, she stopped to get the sterile gauze and placed it on it, with a tape, she made sure that it didn’t come out; He avoided not shaking at the contact of her hands, even with latex gloves, with his skin._

_“And the biological father? Did he agree with that? Or did he never know?”_

_"It was my decision." she kept his gaze for a few seconds before looking at the patch again… at the wound “before you say it or insinuate anything ... yes, I know who the father is”._

_"I didn’t say anything," he defended himself, before realizing he was talking again. "Were you a couple? One-night stand? One night blubber?”_

_“We were not a couple”, there was no romance and although if we were a little drunk, I can’t blame the drunkenness for what we did._

_“You haven’t denied that you have been friends before” Happy didn’t respond, and avoided his look “it was that the only time ... you made it?”_

_"This is ready, just try not to crap again so it doesn’t reopen," she said, completely ignoring the man's last question. "By the way you avoided my question, I assume it was not the only time."_

_“You are a Psychiatrist Genius, a Human Behavior Analyst, Graduate of Harvard Medical School, you should understand the fucking signs that say I don’t want to talk about it” she emphasized her last words. “As far as Lizzy is concerned, Alex is her father”._

_"So…? How does this work? He gives you custody of Lizzy and disappears? Will he have weekend visits in between? Will he appear whenever he wants like Drew?” He began to say every” question that came to his mind. “Have you talked about divorce yet? He stopped at the look on Happy's face._

_"I'm not going to divorce Alex," she whispered, still holding one of her hands on Toby's bare hip and feeling his body tighten._

_“For now? For this month?”_

_"I'm not going to divorce Alex, ever." For some reason Toby's disappointed look was more painful than that night in the garage._

_“You know? I think it's late, maybe you should go back to your place ... I'm sorry, to Sylvester's apartment” Toby stood up, apparently too fast, as the room began to spin: the beating, the medications, the blood loss were passing the bill; Happy caught him before he fell to the floor, and helped him to sit down. “I don’t need help! I can do it by myself”. Toby yelled_

_"Okay." She stopped holding him and he lost his fulcrum, dropping directly to the ground._

_“Oh my coccyx!” He complained after receiving the impact from the floor. "Maybe I do need a little help," he admitted with his wounded pride._

_“Why is this important to you?” Happy questioned while helping him lie down on the bed. “It's just a paper, a contract, a legal matter that doesn’t determine who I can or should love. Why is this so important to you?._

_“Aw so you do love me?” he asked with a silly smile, he expected the blow in response of her, but this one didn’t arrive._

_“You are fucking unbearable ... do you do it on purpose or is it natural?”_

_"No matter what you say, you already admit that you love me ... indirectly, but you did it” he made to move for something “I will call Sly, and Walter, they must know this. Happy Quinn has admitted that she loves me!” He shouted, but this time he did feel the pinch that Happy gave him._

_"Stop making a scandal of this. And just to clarify, I didn’t say I love you” and seeing that Toby was going to refute, she added “but neither have I said no”._

_“I'm going to stick with that” Toby told her to sit next to him on the bed “I would lie to you if I said I understand the kind of treatment you have ... and I know you well enough to know that if you don’t want to talk about it you just won’t” he could feel her relax at his side “I just saw Alex once and he seems like a good guy, and from what I could see that day, I'd bet he's gay right?” It wasn’t necessary for her to respond, he was sure enough to play the ace under his sleeve “and I can assure you that you didn’t even consummate your marriage”._

_"Is this going anywhere?"She interrupted the conversation_

_"I don’t have the slightest idea why you don’t want to divorce ," he finally said and she couldn’t stop a laugh coming from her lips, it was funny to see that he didn’t have an answer “Don’t laugh! ... it feels so strange to tell you that, it's like congratulating Walter for being humble” he tried to sound annoying, but the truth was that it was so strange to see Happy laugh that way, he didn’t mind that she was making fun of his dilemma “I would like to tell you that everything will return to normal, that knowing why and with whom you are married makes everything makes sense, but it’s not …” despite the pain in his side, Toby sat next to her and meditated about of his next words “I couldn’t do it Happy”._

_“I don’t know what you are talking about” she responded._

_"Today at the casino," he finally said, "I couldn’t bet, I was there, looking at the tables, they were so predictable!" I could have won, I wanted to bet and drink until I lost consciousness, I wanted to forget about you, I wanted to play and lose everything all over again, somehow my stupid brain thought it was an easy way to take revenge for what you hid me” she heard him in silence “ but once I sat at the table I couldn’t do it” he finally confessed “I have loved you for a long time, I don’t know when I started to do it, I just know that I had never been as happy as I was while we were together, I know I shouldn’t expect a direct confession from your lips, I never expected it anyway, it wasn’t necessary, I always believed I was the only one capable of reading you as an open book and it was a blow to my heart and my pride to know that you were married and your unwillingness to speak and clarify things didn’t help or even mention the subject of your daughter. However, that day on the roof, you told me about stability and security, you showed me that just like me, you thought about us and that was better than any statement and I promised, maybe not directly, I promised to stop gambling and that carried much more, I promised you a home, security, stability, I promised to fight for a future together, not only because it’s what you were looking for, it was also because it’s what I also wanted, it’s what we both wanted ... and I still want it. Only new factors have been added to this equation” he joked “I need time to assimilate them, and I won’t lie telling you that it will be easy or immediately ... Happy ?!” toby called her when he didn’t hear her answer “did you fall asleep?”_

_"Not idiot ... I just ..."_

_"You don’t have to talk, not now." He began to feel drowsy, his eyelids heavy, and unlike the previous nights, he felt relaxed._

_"I have to go, Doc." Before he stood, Happy pulled the bedclothes to cover the Psychiatrist “try not to do stupid things to open that wound again”_

_"I can’t promise you anything," he managed to say before she left the room._

_**Nowadays** _

Paige looked tenderly at the scene, Lizzy had already forgotten Toby and now she was sitting next to Sylvester and she seemed to be concentrating on reading a book. A little further Ralph and Toby had a lively conversation that her wasn’t allowed to participate, she suspected that her little boy began to have another love problem at school and her mother's heart was tightened by that idea, however Toby Had given her a talk about how this was an evolution in the socialization of the child with his environment. She was concentrating on watching the Scorpion family when the phone rang, it was Katherine Cooper, calling them urgently with a new case and asked that the team be ready in five minutes.

“Guys we have a case!” she told Sylvester and Toby, who nodded and began to save their personal projects; then she went upstairs to find Happy and Walter, who had been upstairs the last few minutes; When reaching the top of the stairs she could distinguish how Happy and Walter spoke in whispers, they seemed to be arguing something, but she wasn’t able to listen, Happy's body language showed that she was defensive, she didn’t need to be an expert like Toby to find that out, they both were so distracted by the argument that they didn’t notice her presence; Walter's words seemed to touch some sensitive fiber on Happy, because she hit the table with her hands and said something that Paige wasn’t able to understand, this time she didn’t speak in whispers, it seemed to be Japanese? Or Chinese maybe? But Walter did understand, and he didn’t let her finish speaking when he was responding too, but he stopped abruptly when he noticed her presence. “We have a case, Cooper will see us in a few minutes” before anyone else could say anything, Happy had already gone down the stairs “what happened?” she asked Walter.

"Just a difference of opinions," Walter said, and then he also went down the stairs, leaving Paige with the impression that both geniuses were quite susceptible.

Twenty minutes later all members of the Scorpion team were in the middle of the garage, although they were reviewing various things, Happy and Toby were having a conversation about the educational system he thought was right for the girl. “That's crap, at 7 she probably will be smarter than hers teachers", Happy said when Toby hinted that perhaps some kind of art college would be good.

“The educational system will be focused on a point that she will dominate perfectly she will grow surrounded by geniuses!” He pointed to himself and the other geniuses in the room “There is nothing that can’t be learned in this garage, except!” He took a dramatic break “socializing, developing empathy and sensitivity and many other things ... you know. You should consider an artistic college as an option for her. Who is the specialist in human behavior?” He said opening his eyes.

"And an egomaniacal narcissist idiot, too," she said, shifting her attention from the genius at her side to the little girl who was playing with legos, something that looked like a pink house. Silently, Happy approached her and helped her to fit some other pieces for finally finish the construction.

"What happened up there with Walter?" Toby asked cautiously, changing the subject.

"Just O'Brien being O'Brien," she said, avoiding the subject. It wasn’t worth following that conversation, so Toby looked for the other part involved in that discussion and found him a few yards away talking to Ralph.

"Hey Walter!”

"If you come to ask what happened, you're wasting your time, Paige already tried," he said without looking at him.

"Happy was pretty upset," Toby said. "Almost like when I fell asleep and didn’t make it to our date ... Well ... maybe not that much, you're not as important than me, but almost”. Walter didn’t answer, just looked at him even more annoyed.

"It's a matter between employer and employee," Walter finally said when Toby didn’t leave and continued to stare at him, until he began to feel uncomfortable.

“What?” Toby grabbed Walter by the arm and pulled him away from Ralph and the rest of the team. "Employer?Employee? Does this have anything to do with Happy's daughter?” Walter again didn’t answer, he just looked away “ Are you worried that Happy is not so efficient with a daughter? Look, Walter, I don’t know what you said to Happy, I don’t know what you discussed and I won’t keep asking, that's a problem between you and her, but Happy needs the support of her friends. Do you really think this is easy for her? Do you think I'm not angry because she lied to me? I am! But she’s terrified, her life changes from one day to another, it’s no longer just her, do you know how scared she is to ruin this? Happy is trying to give to that girl something she never had, and "we””, he pointed to himself and the rest of Scorpion “we are the only family she knows. Walter, you’re not only her boss, you are also her friend” he said the words and went to join the others, leaving Walter with the word in his mouth.

"We have a case," Cabe announced, entering the garage followed by the Deputy Director of National Security, Tim and an unknown man.

"Harold?" Sylvester asked when he saw the man. Happy and Walter practically rushed to meet him.

“Really? You?” Happy said

"As nice as ever." The man smiled at Happy. "John told me the team had undergone changes, but I didn’t think they were good," he said, looking at Paige.

“And you are?” Toby asked, looking at him in confusion.

“He is Harold Pastenes, Deputy Director of …”

"I'm an old friend of Walter and Happy," he interrupted the woman and completely ignored the "we were not friends" of Happy and Walter “I knew what happened with Collins, it's a shame”.

 "Do they know each other?" - the deputy director asked, remembering the encounter with the genius of the CIA “Do all geniuses know each other?”

"Can we focus on the case?" Walter asked. "And just to clarify, John and Harold were never Scorpion's official members ... our projects were not compatible”.

“Well, due to the problem that occurred in Zone B a few days ago, we decided to test our entire security system” Harold explained “We want you to perform a computer intrusion at a distance and another from inside, as well as verify the hardware of Security, all this goes on your own, we want to know how vulnerable our system is. It will only be a test for a maximum period of 120 minutes”.

"As you can see, it's a simple job," Katherine said.

“Ok. So we will work on three teams, Sylvester will make the intrusion…”

“Try to perform an intrusion” Harold interrupted with a smile “You may be some of the smartest people on the planet, but both NASA and the CIA have the best experts on the planet, I don’t think you can circumvent the systems, this is just a test to know where you can go”.

“Is that why you and John have been trying to recruit us for years?” Happy said and Walter smiled coyly.

“As I was saying”, we’ll work on three teams, Sylvester will make the intrusion from here” Walter continued with the assignment of areas “Toby and I will deal with the intrusion from the facilities, and Happy will take care of the security equipment with Tim and Paige”.

“Walter? I have a little problem”, Happy said, sneaking up to where Lizzy was, hoping the genius would understand without the need for more information.”I’ll stay here and do the intrusion from the garage" she proposed.

"No, you're not as good as Sylvester in the systems, nor is he as good as you are at machines”.

“Sylvester could take care of Lizzy and Ralph”, Paige said "I'd love to, but ..." Sylvester said nervously, afraid to look at the engineer or her boss. "I'll only have 120 minutes to make the intrusion and besides taking care of Ralph and Lizzy, I don’t know if I can ... she could get out of the garage in a moment of neglect and …”

"We understood big boy”, Happy said cutting him and turned to look at Walter, but he was just looking around waiting for a solution.

“Toby can stay, he can take care of Lizzy and support the rest of the team” Cabe said.

“Why me?” he complained, however nobody went unnoticed that he didn’t deny.

"You're the most expendable," Walter reasoned, agreeing with Cabe.

“Hey!” The genius complained.

"Ralph can help you with Lizzy," Paige said, looking at her son, who was passing the place with a plate of cookies, the teenager looked around and without saying anything else he went back the same way he had come. “Sylvester could help you a little”

“OK! I will sacrifice and care for the gnome ... Auch!” He complained as he received Happy's blow on the head.

“Well” after that, Walter told the team to prepare to leave. Happy went to where Lizzy was to tell her that she would stay in the garage with the geniuses then she gave a couple of indications to Toby.

"Yes, Mom," the girl said without looking at her, after Happy asked her for the fourth time that she need to obeyed Toby.

“Mom?” Neither of them noticed the moment Harold approached them. "I didn’t know you were a mother”.

"You didn’t have to know," Happy said abruptly

“How old are you?” The man asked the girl.

"It's none of your business," Happy said, telling him that the rest of them were already out of the garage and asked to be followed, while she pointed to Toby where he could find some clothes and other things for Lizzy and then she walked after the others.  
It was only a hundred and twenty minutes to show Harold one of two things. Or they were too good at hacking systems or them system was too bad, Walter was betting on the first option, but the ease with which they had entered extended their work, now they had to present a more efficient system and while working on it Harold had been busy showing them the facilities and telling them everything they could do to improve the system "presumed", Toby said in a singsong voice.

It had been more than four hours since the team had left and Toby and Sylvester were having a fairly quiet time in the garage, the mathematical genius was working with the systems from the place, while Toby had taken care of helping Ralph with some details and watching Lizzy, the girl was concentrated with some books and ignored him olympically. So he focused his attention on the personal project in which he worked.

“What’s that?” Sylvester asked, looking at the blackboard on which the psychiatrist worked.

“Nothing!” Toby said, trying to throw a sheet over the blackboard to cover it.

"Why are there pictures of us and ... other people?" He insisted, wishing Toby wouldn’t confirm his suspicions.

"This," he replied, removing the sheet, letting his friend see the blackboard with the photographs arranged on it, “this is ... is ... you know …”

“Happy is going to kill you!"

“She won’t! ... If she doesn’t find out” Toby hesitated “and she doesn’t have to know any of this”.

“Happy doesn’t have to know what? " Paige asked through the intercom " don’t worry, everyone has the line turned off, I'm the only one connected to the communications right now so I don’t lose contact" Paige explained after a few minutes of silence. "Toby has a blackboard full of photographs of potential candidates who may be Lizzy's father," Sylvester explained, the last in a whisper, fearing to catch the attention of the woman. “What?!” Paige shouted.

“Lizzy was born on February 9, so according to my calculations she was conceived between april 30th and May 30th” he explained “so I guess Lizzy's father might be someone we know, she refuses to talk about that, if otherwise she wouldn’t have to control her words”.

“Who are your options?”Paige asked curiously.

“Any man who has appeared in the garage or been around her during those dates… I have… Walter… Sylvester …” after mentioning him, he take the photograph of him “now that I think about it, I discard you immediately”, Toby said to the genius “As I said, Walter, Collins …”

“Collins! Seriously!?”

"He was at the crime scene those days" he explained before continuing. "Walter, Collins, I ..."  
"How could be you Toby?" Paige asked

“You would be surprised by the number of times I woke up without knowing what had happened the previous night” he excused himself in embarrassment “I continue ... besides that I have a couple of business clients that were here at that time and Happy worked personally with both of them and I also have John, the mediocre genius of the other day, it turns out that for those dates he was staying in a hotel here in L. A”.

"I won’t ask how you know that," Paige said.

"Toby! Sly! I need you to try to get into the system again," Walter said, surprising them. Toby and Sylvester looked at each other wondering how much Walter had heard, yet none asked.

"Doc?" Toby could hear Happy's voice on the communicator. She sounded worried. "Here" "How is Lizzy?" she asked, Toby smiled at the tone of her voice, it was obvious that she was trying to sound disinterested. "She's playing ... something," he replied looking at the girl who was sitting on Happy's desk and seemed absorbed in her game “she’s just like you, she totally ignores me when she wants " after that Happy cut off the communications and he decided to get the girl out of her reverie, as an expert in human behavior he was curious about how outgoing and introverted the girl was sometimes.

“Hi gnome” Toby took a chair and put it right next to the girl.

"My name is not Gnome," she said without looking. "My name is Elizabeth Harper Quinn”.

“I know, but Gnomo feels better” he took some of the lego pieces with which the girl was playing and began to connect them “What are you building?”

"They're not things ... they are pieces," she said, moving some. Toby looked at everything on the table and only then he realize that the pieces were not one on top of the other, except for the house she had built hours earlier, all the small pieces were neat and some superimposed; It took him a few seconds to understand what the girl was referring to and when he realized it, he was sure that Happy hadn’t lied, the girl was a genius, it was a game of chess with a game in progress, the girl played on both sides, but what impressed Toby was the fact that it was an exact copy of the game he had had against the girl the day before, when she had left him in check in only six moves, although he didn’t play seriously, he told himself… but she was repeating each of his movements, she was reliving the game.

"Sylvester!" The genius hurried towards them, thinking that something had happened “What do you see?”

"She has a very strange way of ordering the pieces." Silvester looked at the pieces again, seeing that his response didn’t satisfy the genius. "It's the game you lost!”

"Yes, she memorized every move, even though she wasn’t paying attention." Toby rearranged all the pieces, returned them all at the beginning, Lizzy looked at him annoyed and started the game again, repeating every move they had made the day before and second and the third time Toby returned the pieces to their places and Lizzy repeated the process again and again.

"Do you want to play a new game?" Toby caught her attention, he was surprised that the girl accepted immediately, while they played, she slowly returned to laugh and talk in excess, just as Toby reminded her of the weekend and although she was a little annoying, he liked more that side of the girl “Checkmate!” Toby cried, after knocking down the girl's lego king “I have defeated you!”

"She's five," Ralph said, looking at them from his position next to Sylvester.

“What’s your point?” Toby asked the teenager, Ralph just shook his head and continued with their stuffs “Lizzy, do you know how many moves I used to defeat your king? Can you make all the moves again?” he returned all the pieces to their initial squares and the girl repeated each of the moves “who taught you to play chess?”

“The Lord of the Flowers”

“Who?”

"The lord of the flowers”, Lizzy said annoyedly, “The man who took care of the flowers at my aunt's house, that one of the photograph on your board”.

“From my blackboard?” Toby asked. The girl got up annoyed and walked to the blackboard, where she pointed to one of the photos, the photo of Mark Collins.

The case finally took them all day, it was one o'clock in the morning when the team was returning to the garage. They were surprised to find the garage in silence. The four of them were asleep on the sofa, Sylvester was lying on the shore while Toby was sleeping in the middle of both children, Ralph was leaning against him, while Lizzy huddled for warmth, despite being the one who had hoarded much of the blanket, leaving the three men without a coat "aw this is so cute," Paige said, pulling out her cell phone to take a picture.

"OK ladies, here are your kids," Toby said, apparently he only pretended to sleep “I think I'll start charging extra money for Tobias Curtis's nanny service” Paige ignored him and woke Ralph to take him home, Happy took the bag with Lizzy's things and walked up to Toby to pick her up without waking her. "You can pay me in a different way," Toby said in an insinuating way "anytime you want doc," she replied in the same insinuating tone. Happy took the girl and Toby covered her with the blanket he also wanted to offer her his help, but she was Happy and he knew she wouldn’t accept it, so he just saw her leave the place, lower the wing of his hat to cover his eyes and this time he do fell asleep.

Walter was going to turn off the garage lights as he passed the side of board Toby had been working on, Walter couldn’t help but stare at the pile of photographs, he remembered Toby's words and his discussion with Happy that morning and for the first time in a long time he wondered if he was a coward.


	7. Hospital

The silence of the room was only interrupted by the loud sound of the tools colliding, again and again. Happy tried to be silent when moving the tools, Lizzy slept in the next room, the girl had a light sleep, but her attempt was not quite effective.

They had already been living in her apartment for a couple of days. Happy had taken care of eliminating any potentially dangerous product or chemical, however, it wasn't furnished as she wanted, there were still their meager little furniture, there was only one bed in one of the two rooms, a couple of wardrobemaking furniture and tools at the same time, plus a rustic table that she used more as a work table than to eat, there was also a kitchen with a small fridge, seen as a whole, it was quite similar to the garage, the place looked more like a workshop than a house, though it had never bothered her.

She had thought of redecorating and furnishing everything to make the apartment a suitable place for Lizzy, even though Sylvester had insisted that they could stay with him for as long as they wanted, but Toby, professionally speaking, had recommended that she move as soon as possible with the girl and begin to do the work of redecorating and furnishing the place together, which would strengthen the mother and daughter ties. Finally one day Happy agreed with the psychiatrist, the first few days were extremely difficult for both of them, nevertheless she was certain that the adaptation period would be harder for her than for Lizzy, although they had already been alone in Alex's house, it wasn’t the same, in that house Lizzy was in her house, she was surrounded by her things, she had grown there; then came the hurried transfer to Los Angeles, and even then, although they were all day together, in the garage and the Sly’s apartment, there were always more people, the young genius had become a great friend of the girl, Toby and Cabe had taken care to keep her busy when Happy had to deal with something important; But now they were alone at home, there was no third party to participate in a conversation or to divert the attention.

“Mom?!” Lizzy's voice echoed in the room.

“Over here!” Happy answered after a sigh, she still didn’t get used to that word, she had been tempted several times to ask Lizzy to call her by her name “A nightmare?” She asked when she saw her appear, Lizzy was wearing ruffled hair and pink pajamas with blue letters. 

“I don’t remember what it was” she looked drowsy, she walked awkwardly, sat down next to the woman and leaned her head against her body, Happy was completely still for more than a minute, waiting for the girl to settle at her side, or to say or do something else, but Lizzy just curled up next to her and ran her small arms around her waist.

“Are you sure?” she put her tools aside, looked down and met the sad look of the child, she didn’t need to know much human behavior to be sure that she was lying or you don’t want to talk about it? The girl hid her face against her, letting her hair cover the rest.

"When will I see my dad?" Happy again was without words, not that she hadn’t expected that question and didn’t pretend to lie, but she was aware that she couldn’t tell the truth that way to a girl, in moments like this she regretted not having learned more from Toby.

"If you want tomorrow we can call him", Happy finally said, the truth was that she hadn’t heard anything from Alex since he and Carl had left home a couple of weeks ago, leaving her alone with the child, Happy believed that they would be desperate to hear from the little girl, but "Shock Therapy", as Alex called it, was necessary according to him and that meant that he had to give the girl to her from one moment to the next, without warning and let her learn as time progressed

"Can we invite him to come here?" Lizzy asked. 

"How about we invite him when we've decorated everything?" Happy said, again there was no answer, for a moment she thought that she had fallen asleep, but no, she began to cry quietly and clung tightly to what was within reach, her mother “Come on Lizzy, please don’t cry” Happy practically begged, she tried to comfort her massaging her back, but the girl was crying even harder. The minutes passed and Happy didn’t know what to do, she thought to call Toby or Paige, to ask for help, but she knew she couldn’t go to them every time Lizzy cried, Toby had explained that she was at a maturity level where she was developing her emotional nuances, Happy closed her eyes and thought of something that could calm her.

“Why could not he come with us?” Lizzy said in a voice choked with tears. "Why didn’t we stay there?, we can live together, you know?,“you, Carl, my dad and me and what about my grandmother, and my aunts, and my school, I won’t see them anymore?”. 

"Oh Lizzy, we talked about this Lizzy, we can’t live in San Francisco", she explained calmly. "In a few more weeks you can go ... we can go", she corrected herself, "and visit them all, do you think?" she was expecting another burst of tears, but instead she just nodded. "Don’t you like being in the garage?", Again she nodded. "What do you like the most about the garage?" she had asked about the apartment, but at that place they practically came just to sleep.

"I like Sylvester" she finally said, her voice sounding very low. "I like all his Super Fun Guy stuff”, he looks like Fear". Happy didn’t understand the reference at first, but smiled as soon as she understood. "I also like Bueller …Mom? Can we have a pet?” her voice was increasingly drowsy “Ralph is also my friend, although he doesn’t talk too much, he’s always working with Walter on his projects ... and they don’t let me work with them ... Cabe and Toby also like me, although Toby is a little annoying, he's like my cousin Benjamin, he calls me Gnome or girl, and I'm not a Gnome, and I don’t call myself a girl, although Toby is more intelligent and teaches me new things. Yesterday he taught me the name of all bones of the human body, Benjamin only eats glue” Happy thought it was very funny that she compared Toby with a child “Mom? Toby will live with us? Is he your special friend, right?”

"What do you mean special?"

"Like Carl, he's my dad's special friend. My dad told me that sometimes people can’t get married, and then they have special friends... it's just like the ones who get married, but not married”. Happy made a mental note to accidentally hit Alex as soon as she saw him. “So, is Toby your special friend?"

“No…Yes…no ... well, it's just a little complicated now, you're still so young to understand those things ... sometimes I don’t even understand how this works”.

"Are you getting married?" Happy shook her head. "Why not?, My dad and Carl don’t marry because a man can’t marry with another man, but you're a girl and Toby is a boy. Why can’t you guys get married?”

"It's complicated Lizzy, you're still too young to understand all this, and you shouldn’t ask that kind of question either", she added, a little tired of the child's curiosity. "What do you think we're going to sleep?" She tried, without success, to divert the conversation

"Are you married to my dad?"

"With Alex?"

"No, with my blood daddy." Happy was instantly paralyzed, it was an issue she had avoided, she didn’t want to talk about it, she still didn’t know what to do about it and until that time everyone had respected her decision.

"You mean your biological dad?" She nodded and Happy wished there was a manual with answers to questions like that, maybe she should ask Toby to write one, it would surely be a success “No, I'm not married to him. Alex and I got married so you could have his last name.”

"Oh". She didn’t seem to fully understand the answer, but she didn’t ask again. "Where's my blood daddy?" She asked after a while.   
“It's already 3 o'clock in the morning; do you think we're going to sleep?” The girl nodded, took her hand and walked to the bedroom. They both got into bed and Happy hoped she had forgotten her question.   
“You didn’t answer my question”.   
"Why do you want to know that?"   
"You weren’t with me either, I thought maybe he was going to be with me now, you know, like a family”.  
"We're a family now." A strange family and a little dysfunctional sometimes she added with a smile , she didn’t receive any more answers or questions from the girl, she had finally fallen asleep and Happy sighed with relief; No more questions, for that night at least. She thought about getting up and going with what she was doing before, but she was starting to feel tired, her eyelids were heavy, and she was too comfortable to get up, so she just closed her eyes and waited for the dream to conquer her.

She woke up a couple of hours later, because of Lizzy's loud cough, the girl was sitting on a side of the bed, her messy hair was soaked with sweat, she was pale and had dark circles under her eyes, Happy moved quickly towards her and reached her just as she began to vomit, with one hand she held her and with the other tried to remove her hair face. 

“It hurts! "As soon as she could, she straightened and leaned against the back of the bed, looking very weak. Happy touched her forehead with the back of her hand and realized that it burned with fever, although it didn’t surprise her. "It hurts! "

“Where?” She tried to look directly at the child, for some reason she couldn’t seem to understand her words. "Lizzy, where does it hurt?" she repeated, this time modulating more clearly and in a higher tone each word, the girl took her hand to her belly, but didn’t keep it long, as a new wave of vomiting came.

"Come on Doc!" As soon as the girl had stopped vomiting, Happy ran to pick up her phone and call the genius, but he didn’t answer the first call, she tried again while she dressed, and at the fifth tone, Toby answered the call “Doc! Lizzy is sick, she doesn’t stop vomiting and is burning in fever, she says that her stomach hurts, but I don’t know very well which part, she is disoriented and I think she’s losing consciousness, I go to the hospital now” she spoke so fast that for a moment she doubted he understood what she had told him.

"Happy! Happy! I'm five minutes from your apartment, wait for me there” and cut the call, Happy threw the phone to the bed and saw the girl, who had begun to lose consciousness, as she had predicted, but a new wave of pain made her react again. Six minutes later, Toby entered the room, wearing a shortsleeved shirt and old sports pants.  
"Hey", Happy said, stepping aside, leaving him space to see the girl. "Did you run a marathon?"

"I was running in the park, these muscles can’t be gotten out of the blue", he joked as he touched Lizzy's forehead.

"The park is four kilometers from here”.

"I know," Toby said as he touched the girl's belly. "Lizzy? Can you hear me?", he waited for the girl's response “fine, can you tell me where it hurts? ", he started to pressure some parts of her stomach, she complained at every touch, until Toby pressed lightly on the right side of her lower stomach, then shouted, "I think it's appendicitis"

"Do you?" Happy asked, sounding ruder than she expected.

“We have to go to a hospital; they have to operate her as soon as possible". He didn’t wait for a response from Happy, took the girl in his arms and left the room, in seconds they left the apartment, Happy followed immediately, taking his bag and putting some documents inside she ran after Toby, who waited in the truck, once she opened the door, he sat with the girl in his arms and indicated to Happy what way to take, it took all his physical strength to keep the girl steady and not to fall both of the seat, Happy ran at all possible speed through the L.A.'s streets, she passed several red lights and was about to cause a collision between two small vehicles, she made a 15 minute ride in only 6.

"We arrived in record time", Happy said as she waited for Toby to get out of the truck, to take the child in her arms, but Toby was already walking, almost running, to the hospital. "I'm Dr. Tobias Curtis" he said, as soon as he reached the inn. "She has an inflamed appendix, she has had a high fever and constant vomit a partial loss of consciousness and she has constant and focused pain in the area”. The woman motioned for him to enter through a side door, while she called a couple of nurses, Happy walked behind them to the emergency room, Toby put her on a stretcher, and a nurse began to take her vitals.

"Curtis!" A woman who appeared to be a doctor entered the room, brought the coat half button, apparently was just arriving at the place.

"Andrea!" Toby said. "You have to take her to the pavilion immediately".

“Toby relax, it's the procedure, I must check and do some ...” she was interrupted by the nurse who was watching Lizzy, she had started to convulsion product of fever, for the first time in her life, Happy wasn’t really conscious of what was happening around her, both, Toby, as the woman had rushed to the table, so she couldn’t see anything else, suddenly she felt pulled out of the room, a nurse dragged her out and against her nature, she simply let herself go. Once outside she leaned against a wall, the nurse who had dragged her out, offered her a chair and a glass of water, she denied both offers.  
Happy knew the theory of relativity perfectly, she had probably met her before she was six, but this seemed absurd to her, only three minutes had passed and it seemed hours to her, the struggle between the rational and the irrational, she told herself; The reason: the facts said that the convulsion had been a natural response of the body to excess temperature, the odds of some serious consequence were very low, plus Toby is with her, she reminded herself, worry was totally unnecessary and even so, she didn’t felt calm, she couldn’t stop thinking about the possibilities of something going wrong, however small they were.

"Happy!” after what seemed like an eternity, Toby appeared through the door “they are taking her to the pavilion at this moment. It was only a seizure product of the fever, she´s already stable and ...”

“I know, I just , I...”

“I'll go with her to the pavilion if that reassures you” , he answered a question without formulating “Maybe I made Andrea and the managers believe that I have a high position in National Security and that Lizzy is my daughter, so they won’t hesitate to let me in”.

"Thanks" Toby only nodded in response, they were silent for a few minutes, until he seemed to regain his ability to speak and move, he said goodbye, and went back into the ER. Happy was alone again, but this time she couldn’t stay still, she needed to move, to do something, she paced back and forth in the hallway, she thought she should call to the garage and tell them that she had an emergency, but she only thought about it. She didn’t even remember where she had left her phone, "Not to remember," was something that didn’t happen very frequently, she was Happy Quinn, genius prodigy of mechanics, she didn’t usually forget, and yet she didn’t remember where her phone was, a small detail, which made her think that perhaps she was not as imperturbable as she had believed.

"Happy!” When she heard her name, she returned to reality, looked for the direction of the voice and found Paige, who was running towards her and behind her came Walter, Sylvester and Cabe, all three with worried faces “What happened with Lizzy?”

"What are you doing here?" Her first thought was that Toby had called them.

“Neither you nor Toby came to the garage this morning and didn’t answer your phones, so we went to see Toby and he wasn’t in his apartment, we thought you were in your place, we went there and you weren’t there either, so we started to worry”, Sly said very quickly, “Paige thought maybe something had happened to you guys, you know ... an accident. So we look for your names in the emergency units of hospitals, did you know that it is very easy to hack the hospital's safety net? They should have a more secure system, any terrorist or psychopath can access the information”. He stopped short when he saw Happy's eyes. “We searched for and found Lizzy's name”.

"Where's Toby?"

“He's with Lizzy, they let him in, they're operating her right now”.

"Why didn’t you call us?" Paige approached her and gave her a little hug, with as little physical contact as possible, she knew that the geniuses wouldn’t appreciate much contact. “How are you?” She asked gently.

"I'm not the one who’s in the ER", Happy said.

“It's normal that you're worried or scared, when Ralph was hospitalized, I cry all the time” the genius was still not clear what Paige was talking about “It’s normal for a mother to suffer or to feel fear in such a situation”.

"Lizzy will be fine, these operations are fairly common and riskfree if their are done on time, the percentage of failed operations is a product of surgeons inefficiency and ..., Toby is overseeing the operation” he hadn’t said it that way , But she knew it would be “so the odds of something bad happening are minimal, I'm not Sly, but according to my calculations, there are 0.09%. so, there is no point in worrying", she explained to the woman, logic had once again taken control of her mind, though that faint irrational fear was still present, just a little deeper this time.

"Happy is right, worrying is unnecessary", Walter said, and Paige glared at him. “Toby can be an idiot sometimes, but he's a great doctor, better than any of us could be".

"Happy? Just out of curiosity, though I'm sure I don’t want to know the answer ", Sylvester said. “How did Toby get him in? "

“He made the hospital staff believe that he was an important member of national security and also made them believe that he is lizzy's dad”

"I'll go talk to the management to see how much trouble you've gotten" Cabe said, but before leaving, he asked Paige to give him any news.

"Walter, I need your phone", Happy knew that once Lizzy regained consciousness, there would be only one person she would want to see. Once she had the genius phone in her hands, she dialed the number she knew by heart, but Alex didn’t answer, she tried twice more, at the third she chose to leave a nice voice message with all the details of where and why they were there.

The team settled in the waiting room, Walter chatting quietly with Sylvester and trying to include Happy in the conversation, at Paige´s request who had left for a moment. Happy had told her friends that they didn’t need to stay, but they had insisted on keeping her company at that time. It wasn’t until an hour later that Toby reappeared in the hallway, not surprised to see them all there.

“And?”

"She's okay, she's asleep right now, the sedative will stop working in a couple of hours, but she's stable and there was no complication in the surgery" he said to the engineer. "If you want, you can go and see her". She nodded and waited for Toby to show her the way, she wasn’t surprised to see him following her, they passed a couple of doors and corridors until they reached the elevator, where they climbed three floors and finally they reached room number 346. It was a white and immaculate room as all the hospital, there was only one bed and above her was Lizzy, whose small body seemed even smaller and weak to have the tubes and cables connected to her arms “as soon as she woke up they removed the tubes and ...”

"Thank you" Happy interrupted, it was something she needed to say, "to be and stay with her" Toby just nodded, he said nothing more, there was no need.

"She'll wake up in an hour or two, if you want, you can stay here until she wakes up, anything you need just call". She had pulled a chair over to the head of the bed and sat watching her daughter with her hand he adjusted the strand of hair that escaped from the girl's improvised hairstyle, he would have bet Toby had tied his hair in a hurried bun before putting on his medical garment cap “I'm leaving” Toby reminded her of his presence.

“Okay” he didn’t know what else to say, he stayed in his place longer than necessary, watching her turn her attention back to the girl and couldn’t do more than smile, felt that he was watching a very intimate scene, despite having seen Happy relate to her daughter during the last weeks, the genius had been her all the time, keeping the distances and although she smiled, talked and played with the girl, in her own way of course, he had never seen her with all hers walls down , Just like now, despite her distant gaze, she had "something", it was a look he had never seen her use, and he liked it.

Finally Happy stayed alone in the room, but she wasn’t calm, her thoughts didn’t leave her alone, there were so many things to consider, she had decided not to make decisions that she could later regret, “Decide”, it was actually an ephemeral word to define that there were left some things aside by taking away them or simply because she didn’t want to think about them. 

When Alex had left Lizzy with her, she hadn’t thought of anything but her and the girl, she didn’t know about families or parents and children, the only family she knew was Scorpion, and even though she had recently reunited with her father, that hadn’t taught her much about fatherhood; They were also Paige, Ralph and Drew, he was constantly trying to connect with his son, but he knew that he would never be able to have a connection like Ralph had with Scorpion, his interests were just too different, Paige instead had adapted, though Happy acknowledged that the woman had no idea how to relate to her son until their arrival, the reason Ralph was who he was at the time, was by the balance of having a support point of a "normal" person, as they used to call Paige, who pushed him to his limits, which forced him not only to develop intellectually but also as a person, and to have the support of people like him, without Paige, Ralph wouldn’t go to school, he wouldn’t connect with normal people, but without the geniuses, Paige would still think that the child had some kind of developmental disorder, or autism, as he had been diagnosed. 

What balance would Lizzy have in his life? Happy knew that if the girl asked her to leave school at the age of six and being educated by geniuses, she would probably allow it, she knew that the school had nothing to contribute intellectually to the girl; And there was her central fear, she was a genius, she received her orders of science and facts, she knew that there was much more than that, emotions also used to be a strong engine, but not for her, as a child she had wanted a family and to feel loved so badly, but with the time she realized that it wasn’t what it needed, it wasn’t useful that a family loved her, if the feeling wasn’t reciprocal, in the end, they surrender, it wasn’t until Scorpion arrived that there was a feeling of belonging to somewhere, to something, an emotion in which she hadn’t thought of the past, before them, she had never been able to connect with another human being. And if she wasn’t able to connect with Lizzy ?, she had never felt that fear, emotionally she had only opened up with one person, Toby and yet she hadn’t let her know everything about her, there was a limit, and if something failed , If the feelings changed, nothing happened. With Lizzy wasn’t the same, it was a "Until death do us part" thing, without possibility of dissolution.

"Always trapped in your thoughts, isn’t it?". The male voice startled her, for a second she thought Toby had returned or that he had never left and she hadn’t noticed, but then she noticed that the voice was familiar to her, but it wasn’t Toby's voice. Although in a way she didn’t recognize the person in front of her, it wasn’t the same man who had given her of his daughter and had left his house without warning, his elegant bearing didn’t disappear, but of his elegant presence there was nothing left, he had lost a lot of weight, to the point that the skin seemed to stick directly to the bones, his face incredibly pale and the dark circles even under the sunglasses, Alex Harper had become a completely different man.

“Cancer is progressing much faster than we had thought, the doctor says that I have only a couple of months to live, at most one year” he took off his glasses and Happy could note that the physical deterioration was nothing compared to his gaze, all the hope was gone, all the joy and brightness of his eyes had disappeared, it was a defeated look. “Don’t worry, you don’t need to say anything; I don’t need facts or statistics, nor to know of new studies". Happy thanked the words; it was an extremely uncomfortable moment where despite being a great friend and an emotionally delicate subject, she just couldn’t help but be objective.

"Did Toby tell you to come in?"

“He approached us as soon as he saw Carl and me coming in" Happy thought the genius must have explained everything she had missed on the phone. "He told me she wasn’t allowed visits yet ...". 

"And he still told you to come in".

"He’s a good person, I like him" he said with an insinuating smile. "All of them, actually, to be a bunch of antisocial geniuses, you're not that bad ... Ouch!” He groaned at the pinch of Happy. "Although I must admit that you have improved ... Hey!" Will you beat an evicted man again?” He scolded her as she was about to pinch him again, Happy's guilty look made him laugh. "It was just a joke. I'm fine, I knew this would happen sooner rather than later and luckily it was later than early. It's the cycle of life, isn’t it?” He couldn’t stop a mischievous smile from appearing on his lips. "Will you cry for me? ... Ouch!”

"Have you become more annoying?" Happy asked, 

"Without Lizzy at home, someone must be the child”.

“Do you miss her?”

"Of course". Even without the words, Happy would have known that he was telling the truth, that look of adoration with which he saw the girl hadn’t disappeared, while watching her , his eyes had recovered some of that brightness. “I want you to remember me like this. We had a deal, during each medical visit, every examination, every analysis, I knew that this was going to happen. The religious people usually say that the children are a loan from God, for me, Lizzy was a loan from a friend, time passed and I knew that the time to give her back to you was coming, and ... I hated you Happy, so many times I hated you to be like you were, I hated you because you couldn’t be a normal person, I hated God for my illness, hated Carl for falling in love with me and hated myself for having fallen in love with him. I spent many sleepless nights wondering what Lizzy's life would be like with you, I wondered if you really could love her". Happy could see the sadness in his eyes. “I thought about breaking our deal", he finally confessed. “I thought about not giving Lizzy back to you, I thought about Carl, that he would take care of Lizzy, he loves her as much as I do. I thought that if you thought that he was a better choice for her, you would accept that he would take care of her forever. But then I realized the a part of giving the best to her is to stop making selfish decisions”.

"You weren’t selfish," she meant that she had been, but instead she was silent.

"Yes, I was, I always wanted to be a father, and I saw the opportunity. A real friend would have tried to convinced you that you were able to face all that, I would have supported you to continue with her and instead I accepted that you gave her to me”.

"No, it was not like that." It wasn’t something that made her feel proud. “I couldn’t then. I not only didn’t know how, to stay with her would have been a kind of experiment to know where things would end, and she deserved much more than that”.

“You and your irrefutable logic” they were silent again, Alex had brought a chair next to Happy. “plus, you have changed, things are not as they were when she was born, you deserve it, in fact, she deserves this chance, what is the worst that could happen?”

"I could fall into the rabbit hole, forget her, die of starvation; I might forget to pick her up at school; Some idiot who fell because of Scorpion could kidnap her; Some thief we've helped to arrest ...”

"Oh shut up", he interrupted, not knowing if she was serious or just joking, he hoped with all his heart that it was the last. “Besides you’re here, Lizzy is unconscious, she won’t wake up for about an hour, she can’t hear you, she can’t see you and she can’t feel you, why are you here? Didn’t you want her to feel alone right? You're here to give her emotional support, going against your own logic. That's sweet, it's ... human”.

"Is it an insult or a compliment?".

"There's one other thing I wanted to talk to you about". His tone changed. “Carl doesn’t agree with my decision, but ... whatever he wants legally has no value, you are my wife, the only person who can decide will be you. And I…” 

“I know, I know your opinion and decision about it. You don’t want to be tubed and you don’t want to be kept alive artificially ...”

"Thanks". After that they returned to their state of silence, each in their thoughts, finally Happy got up to go for a coffee, leaving the man alone with his thoughts. She took her time in the cafeteria and no wonder that Paige came to her side just to ask how Lizzy was, as well as telling her to go back to the garage, because Cabe had been given an urgent case, but it would also be something quick, she promised they would be back as soon as possible. 

“Toby went to his apartment to change clothes, Carl took him in his car, said they would be back soon”. She just nodded in response, took her coffee and walked back to the room, the elevators were busy and opted to climb the stairs, she was surprised to find Walter sitting in the hallway outside the room, had the computer on his legs and was typing quickly 

“What are you doing here?”

“I emphasize the details of a tracking software connected to a microchip that can hide in unsuspected places like pet collars, or even jewelry. I need your help with the hardware, for some reason the signal is not emitted correctly”. “I need you to check it ... ". Without looking up the screen added."When Lizzy leaves the hospital of course Toby said that you should stay with her a couple of days after she leaves the hospital, she should rest for a few days”.

“If you leave me the microchip I can work here while she sleeps, but, my question was why you are here, the rest is gone” for a moment Happy feared that the genius had lost in his mind and wouldn’t have realized what passed around. 

"Paige said someone should stay in case something happens, you know, to keep them informed” he explained. Sylvester didn’t want to be alone here, Toby had to go change, he really stunk and Paige had to pick up Ralph.

"What about the case?"

“It's no big deal, Sylvester and Cabe would take care of it, they would call me if it´s necessary” there was not much else to say so Happy entered the room and found Alex talking to Lizzy, she had woken up in her absence. She called the nurse, who appeared in the room a couple of minutes later and after her the doctor who had checked Lizzy first, with the help of the nurse they checked the girl and after a few minutes gave a couple of indications to Happy, promising to return the next day. 

"Although I suppose having Dr. Curtis with you guys my presence is not very necessary", she added before leaving, although she didn’t seem to be annoyed, then added. "And tell him that I know he lied to me to let him in and I hate being lied to". And left the room, after a few seconds Walter entered the room.

"Everything's fine, she just came to check on Lizzy's condition, she woke up a few minutes ago" Happy explained to Walter, while Alex was arranging the girl's hair. 

"Well, I'll tell the others the good news" Walter said, leaving the room again. 

“Mom?” She came immediately to the bed, the girl was watching her smiling, she had woken up in a good mood, even though she still felt a little sore. “Did I get sick? ",  
“Yes, but now, you just have to rest, so that the wound doesn’t open and we can go home in a couple of days". Happy took her place in the chair where she had been before, while Alex was sitting comfortably in the head of the bed, with one of his hands held the girl's hand and with the other stroked her head.

"Will you come too?" she asked the man, both adults looked at each other and he chose to take the floor, subtly explained the situation to Lizzy again “are you going to die?, Will you really die? Like grandpa?” the man spoke as calmly as he could, explained as simply as possible, and Happy just watched in silence, felt like an intruder watching that scene so intimate, between father and daughter, no matter what the DNA said, he had managed to connect with the girl, as probably none of her biological parents could. Just to focus on something else, she checked her phone, there were dozens of missed calls from the garage, the last ones were recent and immediately after these, there were a couple of calls from her father; Making a sign with her hand to Alex, she left the room to make a call, but when she left, she found herself facing Walter, trying to stop Patrick, the man seemed nervous and stammered Happy's name.

“What´s going on?” Happy said and the man paralyzed as soon as he heard her voice, looked at her in disbelief.

"I think there's been a little confusion," Walter explained.

"I called the garage, and they told me you were in the hospital since this morning, I called you and you didn’t answer me and ... I thought something had happened to you".

"I'm fine". This was another detail that she had put off as the days went by, her father still didn’t know about her daughter´s existence, she had postponed that conversation, Toby had given a list of psychological reasons for this, however she ignored him.

“So…?”

“Look dad, more than five years ago I ...” and that was the beginning of one of the many conversations that she had pending, she hoped that the ones that followed were simpler, when she gave Lizzy, she did it because it was the best for her, but now she was delaying certain conversations just for being selfish.


	8. The lord of the flowers Part 1

The meeting between grandfather and granddaughter was very emotional for both of them, Patrick was extremely excited, but all the surprise was standing aside to the sudden energy of the girl, that as soon as she knew who he was, she didn’t hesitate to tell, which she liked and didn’t like. As she spoke, telling some surprising anecdotes, Alex spoke to tell the truth of how things had gone. The three of them laughed and talked animatedly. The perfect example of happy family. Happy watched them from the doorway, memorizing each of the girl's anecdotes and their reactions. At first she thought to leave the place and leave them alone, but instead she stayed there watching the scene.

Days at the hospital passed quickly and medical discharge also involved a new goodbye, Alex, Carl and Lizzy said goodbye to each other in tears, although minutes later the girl was laughing again, thanks to Toby and Patrick, which eased the tension of the moment. At the request of Toby, supported by Paige, Walter gave Happy two weeks, so that she could stay at home taking care of Lizzy. But it wasn’t more than three days when they were back in the garage. Happy left some of her projects aside, to start some new ones with her daughter, they were small things from origamis, constructions with pieces of legos to mini robots with simple circuits; Sometimes Toby, Sly or Ralph, even Cabe, joined to them, Sylvester tried in a couple of times that the leader of Scorpion would join their games, but he always declined the invitation alleging that he had a lot of work behind and that he didn’t have time for games. It was obvious to everyone, even to the geniuses, that Walter tried to avoid the girl, like everyone else, he had received her with open arms, but he didn’t approach her, nor did she, the girl was open and talkative with everyone, but with the genius she didn’t cross more than a few words. Although all of them noticed, no one said anything about it, not even Toby, who had his hypothesis about it, but he hadn’t talked about it.

After a couple of careful and not legal investigations, Happy had finally chosen a school for Lizzy. The school was conveniently in a short distance from Ralph's school and near her father's workshop, who had  
offered voluntarily to take both children from school and take them to the garage in the case that this was necessary.

Happy had agreed with Walter that Lizzy would stay in the garage after school for at least two months, then start looking for a nanny, but that would take time, since she couldn’t get anyone into her apartment, much less into the life of a girl who don’t understand the concept of keeping a secret and being in the garage she saw and heard many things. For now she would rely on the team and Patrick, who was more than willing to babysit.

It had already been a week since lizzy entered school and Happy would have a short interview with the teacher, before classes, to talk about how it had been that first week. Usually Toby would have gone with her, but after he had questioned and harshly criticized each of the teacher's methods in front of her during the first interview, she didn’t think he would be welcomed. Sylvester would also have been good support, at least morally, but probably not well received, not after having searched and found all the infrastructure problems of the school, have made a report with them and how to solve it, sending it later to Director of the school, all that in the forty minutes he was in school, while Happy and Toby had the first admission interview. It wasn’t that Happy really cared what the teacher thought of them, but even she realized that it was better not to bother her anymore; she had been surprised when they had accepted Lizzy at school.

"I don’t see the problem!" , the three geniuses that were in the garage that morning, raised their heads at the voice of Happy, she didn’t hear annoying, but by the tone of her voice, was very close to being. She swung open the door and hurried to her work table, leaving behind Paige, who looked frustrated.

"Lizzy can’t say fool to a teacher", Paige said. She stood in front of her desk, while Happy began to sort out her tools, ignoring her. Both Toby and Sylvester were attentive to both women, followed them with their eyes and listened to every word.

"Technically she didn’t call her a fool", Happy said, not looking up from her tools.

"She told a professor, that her lower IQ" she put special emphasis on this last word "was of an average person".

"We tell you that all the time", Toby interrupted, looking at the woman in dismay. He didn’t understand where the offense was.

"It's true, if her IQ were higher, or like a genius, she would not be a primary school teacher". Walter stepped in from his desk. "She only told him an obvious truth, why would she be offended?"

"It doesn’t stop being offensive".

"What did the teacher say?" Sylvester looked at both women alternately.

"She said that Lizzy has serious problems in relating and understanding certain social norms, which at her age she should already understand, that she quickly loses interest in games according to her level, doesn’t respect degrees of authority. And …" She looked at Happy, looking for a sign that said she shouldn’t speak, but she seemed indifferent. "The teacher thinks that maybe it would be good for Lizzy to go with a specialist to help her with all that".

"Toby can help." He's a Harvard psychiatrist. Sylvester spoke quickly. "He knows a lot about human behavior".

"Toby knows the theory, but he doesn’t put it into practice". Paige explained subtly and Lizzy is at the perfect age to receive help.

"Help?" Happy's indifferent gaze gave way to a look of fury. "You say that like there's something wrong with her".

"None of us got that kind of help", Walter said, but as soon as he finished speaking, he regretted it, for the way the blonde glared at him.

"And how did that work out?". Paige was carried away by the heat of the moment, she didn’t realize in time of the effect of her words. "You didn’t receive necessary help from children and ended up working in a garage without much future ahead, just because you couldn’t adapt to the environment, but now you haven’t improved, you have become more..."

"Improved?" Happy hit the desk with both hands. Sylvester groaned and looked desperately at Toby and Walter, waiting for someone to intervene, before Happy spoke or did something else. "Why should we change and adapt?" She pointed a finger at Paige, "Why should we" "adapt "?, "Why should we change?, Why can’t ordinary and stupid people like you just adapt to us?"

"This stupid helped you out of the hole you were in".

"Hole in which we were? Do you really think it was you who got us out of there?" the fury in Happy's voice was what most frightened Sylvester, he knew perfectly well what that meant. "Seriously? The only reason you ended up being part of Scorpion is because you got into Walter's head and because Ralph is a genius".

"Happy!" Cabe came running to them, seeing that none of the geniuses reacted to stop what went from bad to worse . "What is going on here?"

"Nothing", Happy said and left her tools on the table and walked to the kitchen, where she made herself a coffee and disappeared from the view of the others.

"Paige?!" The National Security man looked at her, but she shrugged and walked to her desk, although Cabe didn’t miss a couple of tears that fell on the woman's cheek. "Go see Happy, I'll talk to Paige" Toby says. He knew better than any of them how the girl would feel, after all she worked with the geniuses and nobody better than the psychiatrist to talk to the engineer.

Toby went up to the roof, he knew she would be there and indeed she was there. She was leaning against the edge of the building, her body leaning against the wall and staring at the horizon. She didn’t seem to have noticed the presence of the genius, but he knew her enough to know that it was just an alibi, testing the ground he approached her, he stood right next to her and likewise he leaned against the wall. He hoped it was she who spoke first, but the seconds passed and she was still abstracted in the landscape.

"This has been a very interesting morning" He immediately felt the fist of the girl on his shoulder . "Ouch!" He complained exaggeratedly. "What have we talked about punch anybody’s arms?" , Toby asked slowly, as someone who asks a question to a small child.

"You idiot".

"Do you want to talk about what happened down there?" A deja vu came to his mind, some time ago they had both been there, exactly in the same position, side by side on the roof, throwing paper airplanes.

"No, I Don’t".

"OK" He took her hand in his and gently began to run his fingers over hers, making random shapes. He knew his touch comforted her, even though she denied it.

During the nights, she used to curl up beside him, put her head on his shoulder and put her arm over him and there she would stay, even asleep. To the genius it was a surprise that she slept all night in the same position, at first he had expected her to be a mess at bedtime, or waking up in a totally different position to the one she had when they slept, but she was the contrary, most likely due to her quiet and solitary childhood and adolescence.

"Ok, talk!" . She said after watching what it took for the psychiatrist to keep his mouth shut.

"You have been judged all your life, not just you, everyone. It has never mattered much to us", he added disinterestedly. "Relatives, teachers, psychologists, doctors. Always asking what was wrong with us, why we didn’t talk like the others, because our interests were different ... okay okay I'm going to the point. As an adult that hasn’t changed, Paige is a constant reminder of that, trying to make us act more normal" he made a couple of quotes with his fingers to emphasize the last word . "But, now it's different. It's not about us, it's about Lizzy. You feel that you are somehow being judged, she want to mold her to be a normal and functional type of person. and you, like a lioness mom, will go out and defend Lizzy. And!" he added before she could say anything. "Paige is the representation of that normal world that will be constantly asking you to change. That's why you've been more defensive with Paige than with anyone else".

"I haven’t been on the defensive. It's just…" She sighed and shook her head before continuing. "Would it be so bad for her to be like us?".

"Me, like you, Sylvester and Walter, I’m happy with who I am". She spread her arms and waved her hands in a circle around him, pointing to the garage," with what we have achieved and with this strange and dysfunctional family.

"But we don’t know what it will be like for Lizzy, or for Ralph, there will come a time when we no longer have something to offer them, because we are too old or because we are dead".

"Do you think I should take her to a specialist?"

"As a professional, I think so," Toby looked at her and she was still staring at the horizon.

"And yours Toby?, What’s your opinion?"

"That you should send the school to hell and educate her at home".

"It would be much easier." Without warning, she approached to the genius and leaned against his chest, her hands gripping his jacket.

"That would be the easy way, and we both know you don’t like simple things." He rested his chin on the woman's head, he loved how their bodies fit perfectly, how their ideas complemented each other, how they could come to the same conclusion, all that, were little details that reminded him why he loved her so much "But, you know I am here to support you. To follow you wherever you go".

"That's ... harassment."

"Oh, come on!", He complained, trying to hide a smile. "What about Paige?"

"None of what I said was a lie". Toby pulled her away to look directly into her eyes, a somewhat uncomfortable contact for both of them, but necessary.

"Maybe I shouldn’t have said it that way".

"Good girl. Ouch!" Happy hit him with a fist on his shoulder, again.

"Elia is here!" Sylvester poked his head through the door, dreading what he might find on the roof, fortunately they were just talking. Come on . Both went after Sylvester. When they reached the ground floor they saw Walter talking to the man, he said something and the genius nodded.

The geniuses took place next to Cabe and Paige, who glanced at the engineer, but she was absorbed in trying to decipher what the men were talking about and didn’t notice. Finally Walter told them that the businessman needed the services of Scorpion, he needed Sylvester and Happy, so it wasn’t necessary for the whole team to travel. The problem arose when Elia explained that the work had to be done in another city and they wouldn’t be back until the night.

"I must be back before Lizzy leaves school and considering the travel time, it will take time to review and repair the engines. We won’t be back until three hours after she's gone". Happy excused herself.

"I can pick her up at school" Toby suggested "and then I'll bring her to the garage until you get here."

"Okay," Happy said after thinking. It wasn’t that she distrusted Toby, she didn’t think that something could happen to the child, she was only a little disappointed that she was not the one to look for the child after leaving school, and who would have to listen to the exaggerated emotion throughout the trip in Lizzy’s voice, who remained completely oblivious to the problems she generated for the teachers or between the children.

"I have the special pass" Paige said, pointing to her desk. The pass was a kind of card that was delivered by the school when someone other than the parents removed a child from school. Happy had given it to Paige so that it would keep it in the garage in case of any eventuality.

It was decided that Toby would wait for Lizzy and then take her to the garage, it wasn’t necessary for Happy to remind him of the girl's routine, or that she should still have a light diet, he knew all that, after all, he spent much of his days with them and the rest of the team of course. Happy and Sylvester began to prepare the tools they had to carry. She was arranging the keys in her bag when Toby approached and stood by her desk, stood there in silence until Happy could no longer ignore him.

"What?!" In response the genius only looked at the blonde, who was sitting at her desk, typing some things on the computer. He opened his eyes exaggeratedly and with his mouth beckoned to the other woman, but Happy only folded her arms, pretending she didn’t know what he meant.

"Go and tell you're sorry", he finally said. It shouldn’t even be a sincere apology, just say "I'm sorry".

""But I'm not sorry". Happy replied.

"I know, but Paige doesn’t think like us. Even if she doesn’t say it, the fact that you say that to her is a sign that you don’t appreciate her. And I know that despite everything, you don’t want her to feel that way. You have some appreciation for her, just like you had for Carl, Ray or Tim".

"Or Bueller", Happy said.

"I don’t think you should mention that she is as important as a pet. Just go". He practically had to push her to walk to Paige's desk, while he watched the scene without dissimulation.

"Hey!" Happy spoke in such a low tone that someone who didn’t know her would think she was embarrassed, but Paige knew her well enough. "Listen to me... No matter how or why you came to the team, or that you are not a genius. You are an important part of Scorpion and you should know that".

"Is that an apology?" Happy nodded "Toby sent you?" Happy nodded again.

"But that's what I think".

"Fine, apology accepted".

"That is all?, Are we Ok?", Happy asked cautiously. Seeing the woman nod, she turned and felt her muscles relax.

"You see, it wasn’t hard?" Toby asked Happy as soon as she passed by his side; in response he received another blow on the forearm.

A couple of minutes later, Happy and Sylvester were leaving the place with the businessman, while Toby was busily discussing with Cabe in a corner, he spoke in a low voice and seemed to be begging something to the National security agent, who at first denied effusively and as the genius spoke seemed to relax and yield more and more to the demands of the genius. Cabe Gallo thought that he was being too consenting to the geniuses, but after a few pleas finally agreed to Toby's requests, he knew that this would bring him trouble with Walter, with Happy, probably even with Homeland.

"What's wrong with Cabe?" Paige asked Toby as soon as he had finished talking to the agent, who immediately, without saying goodbye, left the place. The genius just shrugged and went to his desk, hoping Cabe could get what he had asked for.

At 11:00 am Toby's phone began to ring, both Walter and Paige noticed the emotion in his face, his eyes widened as he listened to his interlocutor, cut the call and quickly put on his jacket and took his bag .

"Hey Boss, I'll take the day and I'll take the company car". He stood in front of Walter, hoping the genius, who was still a little confused by the sudden request, handed him the keys. Once he had them in his hands, he quickly left the place.

"What just happened?" Paige asked, Walter was about to answer when Toby entered the garage again, walked briskly to Paige's desk and grabbed something.

"Thinking better, you should come with me", he said, looking at the woman. "Now!. I'll explain on the way". The woman went to take her purse and jacket; she knew that asking questions was useless. "And you Walter ..."

"What?" He answered without paying much attention to the genius; his attention was focused on the woman who arranged his hair, a few meters beyond.

"You must pick Lizzy from school, You’ll need this". He put down the special pass Paige had kept on his desk. He quickly walked over to the woman, took her by the arm and they both left the place.

"Wait, what?"! Walter reacted when they had both left the garage, he wanted to go after them, but immediately heard the sound of the engine when the vehicle started.

What was Toby thinking?! How was he supposed to take care of the girl? He had been in contact with other children throughout his life, especially when he was one of them, and things hadn’t turned out well. It hadn’t been hard for him to talk to the children he'd met through her work on Scorpion, especially with Ralph, but Lizzy was different, happy, energetic, and outgoing when she felt comfortable, and with him she clearly didn’t feel that way, otherwise she was alert, silent and quiet, extremely quiet and he could easily lose sight of her, Happy would kill him if that happened.

Walter tried desperately to contact Patrick, who answered the sixth call and told him that he had prior commitment to a major workshop supplier, that he couldn’t help but assist, but if it really was necessary he could postpone it and go for his granddaughter, nevertheless and although he wanted the opposite, Walter denied his offer. After reviewing again and again the list of his phone contacts decided to call Happy and ask if they would return soon, she didn’t answer the call, but minutes later he received a text message that said "Toby already told me that he and Paige went to a job outside the city and that you offered to take care of Lizzy (I know he lied), until we arrived, Just make sure she does the homework". He sighed resignedly, set the alarm on his phone and began to advance all possible work. Something told him it wouldn’t be a productive afternoon.

Meanwhile Toby and Paige were silent in the car, they were at the speed limit allowed, the genius had refused to say any word yet, ignored the questions of the woman, who had resigned and just watched the landscape at through the window and sometimes she nostalgically watched the child car seat in the backseat.

"Ralph never had one of those" Paige broke the silence as she looked back through the rearview mirror.

"Why?"

"Single mother, the salary of a waitress wouldn’t allow me to get one. It was a long time ago".

"That nostalgic look ... Do you think about having more children?" Toby looked away from the road to watch her reaction "With Walter maybe?"

"What?! No!" The effusiveness with which she denied only gave the reason to Toby, who only lifted an eyebrow in disbelief. "How will Walter find Lizzy if you've brought his car?"

"An abrupt change of subject, but you have a point", he said, pressing his lips tightly as he finished speaking, "well I suppose he'll have to catch a bus, or a taxi", he finally said in a disinterested way.

"Walter and Lizzy?" on a public bus?", "I don’t think so…"

"What's the worst that could happen?" Toby's voice sounded even a little amused. "Lizzy knows the address of the garage, Happy's apartment, mine, and even knows your addresses, Cabe and Sylvester’s. She also knows all our telephone numbers and in case something happens and if she can’t contact any of us she knows she should ask to notify Katherine, deputy director of National Security or just contact National Security.

"I'm not afraid for her". They both laughed at the idea of seeing Walter as a babysitter, trying to use the public bus, trying that the girl doesn’t move away from his side

"Walter won’t do so badly, incredibly as it sound, he doesn’t get that bad with kids, just look at Ralph. He’s a good prospect of a father ... of course, with his abilities". Paige finally said.

"Lizzy is different from Ralph and she doesn’t seem to like Walter very much".

"It's not really that she doesn’t like Walter, she only perceives Walter's discomfort when he doesn’t know how to relate to her and Happy hasn’t helped either of those get along well, maybe without someone else out there they might become friends".

"What do you mean, Happy hasn’t helped?"

"Well ... Lizzy has been in touch with everyone in the garage, plays and feels comfortable in the place, likes to sit next to Sylvester, or sometimes she spends hours at my desk, it wasn’t like that the first day she came. We let her be, no one told her you can’t sit there or don’t talk, although sometimes I really wanted her to shut up. But when Lizzy approaches Walter, Happy stops her, I still don’t know whether she does it consciously or unconsciously, but asks her not to bother him, or tells her that he is working on something dangerous, she keeps her on the sidelines".

"Happy doesn’t want Walter to relate to Lizzy?, That's absurd, they see each other every day and ...". After her words, Paige began to remember some scenes like those mentioned by Toby, she had always believed it was a coincidence, but now that Toby said it, it seemed that he was right, Happy deliberately avoided contact between Scorpion's leader and her daughter, but why?

"It's complicated. I think that somehow Happy has unconsciously related you, Walter and you, with the two major conflicts that Lizzy will have to face, she wants to help her, but she doesn’t know how or even if she needs help".

"Walter and I?"

"Walter represents the way of genius, with all its ups and downs, while you represent that selfish and oppressive society that wants the genius to change and adapt", he explained quickly.

"Why am I the selfish and oppressive society?" Paige stopped looking at the man and focused her gaze at some distant point. "I'll never finish pleasing Happy". She said as she remembered a certain phone conversation they had had during Walter's disappearance long time ago.

"She likes you... more than other normal people, and that 's pretty good". Toby commented. "Happy and you will always be polar opposites; somehow you represent what society always expects of her, or any woman. What is expected of a woman, a stereotype. You are that sociable woman, happy, good housewife, good mother, the woman who stays beautiful, who cares about her appearance, you are that girl that everyone admired in school, the one that girls envied and boys wanted. You are ... you are what every foster family, what every teacher hoped Happy to be".

"Happy is a beautiful, cute, intelligent and selfconfident woman ...!"

"I know, that's why I love her". Toby smiled widely at his copilot's words. "I didn’t say that she cares about that, I said that you are polar opposites. Happy will never be your friend in the conventional sense of the word, normal people tend to have a rather overrated concept of a friendship. However, she will always be there for you, she would trust you with her life, is not that more important?"

"I guess so", she admitted.

"Great part of the concept of friendship that normal people usually have is based on social norms and that doesn’t give us good".

"I know".

"Since Lizzy arrived, your attitude has also changed", Toby said suddenly. "Walter, Sylvester and I, especially myself, had reason to be angry, feel betrayed, or even guilty. We were friends then, we are friends now, and one of the reasons Happy gave Lizzy was for us, we weren’t a suitable environment for her, not compared to what Alex and Carl could offer to the girl. A normal person may not understand, but we think in the same way, a logical, rational, whatever you want to call it. But you, you have no reason to be angry or hurt with Happy, you weren’t friends then and you are not friends now, not in the strict sense of the word", he clarified again. "So I think the reason you've acted differently with Happy is because your mother's heart doesn’t understand, your subconscious judges her for the decision she made and Happy perceives this change, maybe, unlike me, neither you nor she can explain the reason for this invisible wall that has emerged between the two of you, but you both know it".

"Where are we going?" Paige asked to change the subject, somehow the genius had made her feel uncomfortable and embarrassed.

"To see someone," he said evasively.

"To who?"

"You'll know". He smiled nervously and made a great effort to look closely at the road ahead of him. Toby knew that if Paige bothered, it was very likely that Happy would be more than annoyed, probably would point out how ironic was that the abduction victim, whom this person tried to kill, went to visit his abductor, but when she found out what it was the reason he was visiting Collins would be pissed off, very pissed off, but it was worth it, or so he hoped. He needed to know, it was his nature, he should know, and he knew that Happy wouldn’t tell him.

His mind remembered that meeting with Carl a couple of weeks ago and the strange but informative conversation they had had. Talk that had allowed him to know a little more about Happy and her past and to understand a little more the reason behind her decisions.

**A couple of weeks ago...**

_After the operation, while Lizzy was resting in the care of her mother and Alex, Toby decided it was the right time to go to his apartment for a shower and a change of clothes, he stank and his clothes were wet with sweat. He informed the rest of the team that he was going to take a taxi, he hadn’t gone in his car and Happy would probably not give him the keys to her truck, when the man he had identified as Carl, Alex's partner, offered to take him to his place._

_The awkward silence was present throughout all the trip to the department of the genius, He watched from the window and drummed his fingers in the glove compartment, the rhythm was just a sticky tune from a cookie commercial, but he had to keep busy. He had many questions about Happy and her daughter and the man at the wheel could probably answer some of them, although he didn’t know if he really was prepared to listen to what he could say._

_"It's a pretty sticky tune". Carl broke the awkward silence._

_"Companies often make use of contagious melodies. Although you don’t think it turns out to be extremely efficient, a lot of people usually prefer certain brands of products just because they associate a certain melody with them". Toby said. "I think they haven’t introduced us" he suddenly remembered, "Everything in the hospital had been very fast". He knew the man probably wanted to escape the place, he was surrounded by unknown people, and he was clearly uncomfortable in the presence of the geniuses, and the offer of transportation to his apartment had been beneficial to both of them. "I am…"_

_"Tobias Curtis", Carl finished. "Harvard Behavioral Genius. You work at Scorpion and you also have a relationship or whatever you call it, with Happy. Alex hired a private detective" he explained without taking his eyes off the road. "No offense", he said with a smile, not a little regret in his voice. "He, both of us, really needed to know what kind of people Lizzy would surround with once she were with Happy"._

_"That's a violation of ..."_

_"Privacy?, Happy hacked our computers, several times, in addition to the cameras and our security system" He finished with resignation. Toby didn’t need to be a behavioral genius to know that the man didn’t seem to agree with Happy's methodology, even now, long afterwards, the discomfort was glimpsed. "The computer technician called me, extremely worried, to inform me that a "Hacker"" he emphasized the last word, adding a mocking tone "had mocked my firewall. Imagine having to explain that an old friend, who is not able to call or write like a normal person, hacks your computer to find out how her daughter was, rather to make sure she was okay with us. It was like being under constant surveillance"._

_"The big brother always does. You don’t look very happy about that"._

_"I never understood that way of being so cold and impersonal of Happy. I will never understand how your brain works. No offense"._

_"You said no offense twice in this conversation". He shot at him a quick glance before turning his attention to the landscape in front of them. "Lizzy is also a genius, she is… she’s like us"._

_"I know. That's why I made the fort and let her come back with Happy". He paused, thinking in his next words. "It's not easy to love and raise a girl who is not yours and know that sooner or later you should give it to a person like Happy ... if Lizzy hadn’t been a genius, I would never have given it to her"._

_"That's absurd." Toby couldn’t help but be annoyed by the man's words, although it was true that her, well, all of them, had difficulties in maintaining emotional or social relationships, didn’t mean that they were not able to do so, or that they were bad people "Happy will be, is, a great mother. She loves Lizzy"._

_"She's a genius, she told me once she made no mistakes"_

_"That doesn’t apply to emotional issues", Toby said between his teeth._

_"And she was aware that her wasn’t a good choice for Lizzy". "She decided that Alex and I were a better option. Why would be different now?"._

_"Because soon there will not be an Alex and you maybe?" the sarcasm of the question was clear, but Toby couldn’t help feeling guilty at seeing the pain reflected on Carl's face._

_"You know what I mean. Why now?"_

_"Because ..." He didn’t know what to answer, He could say many things from a psychological point of view, but the truth was that he didn’t know what had led to Happy to give her daughter at that time, at least he didn’t know with certainty, much less he could order his thoughts to form a clear idea. It was something he couldn’t think clearly about._

_"You and your genius friends are the result of your inability to connect or understand with their families" Toby thought that the way to his apartment was longer than usual, he definitely didn’t like the direction of the conversation, the last that he wanted at that time was to hear cheap psychology. "The family is the first thing you see of society; they are the door to the world. With them you learn how to relate to others. What happens when your family is not able to connect with you?"_

_"You end up being a hermit genius with few social skills and serious emotional problems". Toby said._

_"What will happen to Lizzy if Happy is not able to connect with her?"_

_"Or maybe Lizzy won’t be able to connect emotionally with Happy. The problem isn’t always the parents. Sometimes we don’t do much of our part". He looked directly at the man, and as he spoke he began to gesticulate exaggeratedly, like every time he wanted to talk about something important. "I know you don’t like Happy"._

_"That’s not true"._

_"But..." Toby paused before continuing, needing a few seconds to process if he said it to Carl, or it was something he needed to repeat himself. "Happy is a great mother. She will never leave Lizzy alone and will never let anything happen to her. Besides, she’s not alone"._

_"I know that Lizzy will never miss anything, do you think I would have agreed to give it to her just like that if I didn’t believe that?, I love Lizzy, I love that girl from the moment I saw her, and that's why I don’t understand, I can’t understand how she was able to give her like this, how she could live for years without knowing her, only knowing of her by some lines that she read in the mails or messages from Alex or mine. No matter how much time passes, I don’t care that Lizzy doesn’t care, but for me Happy will always be the woman who abandoned my daughter. And no matter how much I try to ignore it, part of me is afraid she'll do it again"_

_"That won’t happen", Toby said. "Happy loves that girl, but her way of showing it’s ... different"._

_"Alex said the same thing". Nostalgia seized his voice. "He used to say that Lizzy showed her love in very strange ways, just like her mother"._  
_"Alex and Happy were close friends?" Toby asked, it was the perfect opportunity to know more details of who had been Happy. He wanted to know, he wanted to know every detail of her._

_"Happy and I met in a foster home when we were like 11, I'm sure she could tell you the exact date. Alex and I were friends from school and one day I present them. He was curious, Happy's personality intrigued him, at some point they became friends. Their friendship initially consisted basically of Alex going after Happy as they talked about cars, engines, circuits and things like that. He learned quickly and adapted to her, he was insistent and didn’t surrender, until in the end Happy ended up considering him a friend and even laughed with him. I walked away from them, I was in bad steps", he said in embarrassment "and Happy was not much behind me, because she was cautious, much smarter"._

_"What do you mean by bad steps?, Alcohol? Drugs?"_

_"We were teenagers, we were curious, the difference is that Happy had the ability to selfcontrol and slow down when she was going too far, I didn’t". The man smiled without joy before continuing. "Happy wanted a new tool or a new computer and just went to some casino, or hacked an ATM, but she got what she wanted and stopped, I couldn’t, I always wanted more, more money, more things, more status. Maybe that's one of the reasons I hate her so much at some point in my life" he added after being silent for a couple of minutes "Happy could have whatever she wanted, her mind was capable of wonderful things, she could have worked in the NASA, in the CIA, for big car companies, could have accomplished great things, but she just ... She had no goals in life, she didn’t want money, she just wanted to go from one project to another, looking for challenge after challenge"._

_"In other words, you envied her, You had a goal, but no way to reach it and she had the method but wasn’t interested in the goal"._

_"Something like that", he smiled before stopping the car. "What I wanted to say is that the day Happy gave us Lizzy, for Alex it's a sign of her confidence in us and that we give Lizzy back to her. Show her that we trust in her"._

_"But you don’t trust in her"._

_"Not just in her…" Carl look at Toby, who immediately understood what he meant. "We have followed Scorpion on the internet, your news, your achievements, the rescue of the boy on the beach, we read that the boy, the waitress's son got into some kind of toxic chimney or something. We also heard the award for Walter's rocket, which eventually sent to space"._

_"Let me guess, none of that gives you more security?"._

_"Of course not". "Do you have any idea how many people he could have helped with that money? And he might even have reinvested in Scorpion, at least give you a more decent place to work". Toby didn’t protest this, since he himself had once claimed that. "Selfishness and lack of empathy seem to be common to all geniuses"._

_"Lizzy is also a genius"._

_"I know." Toby had already opened the vehicle door when Carl's phrase returned to his mind._

_"Waitress, you've called Paige a waitress"._

_"What's wrong with that? She was a waitress before joining Scorpion"._

_"It's not very normal for someone to call her like that. You are an educated and respectful person, you don’t despise any work, you wouldn’t use the term waitress in a derogatory way"._

_"I don’t..."_

_"You heard it from someone else", Toby said, closing the door and turning to face the man. "We do it sometimes, but you haven’t heard it from us. Collins! You heard that word from Mark Collins!"_

_"I do not know any Mark Collins"._

_"You’re lying! I can see it all over your face. Why? Why do you know him?"_

_"I think the conversation is over". Every friendly trace disappeared from his face, and abruptly he opened Toby's door, motioning him to go down. The genius hasn’t yet fully come down from the vehicle, when Carl made it leave, leaving him even more baffled._

**Nowadays**

 "Toby!?" Paige called him, he was unusually still and quiet, he could easily be mistaken for a statue or a mannequin. They had been in the Neuropsychiatric Hospital in the waiting room for more than an hour, and Toby hadn’t said more than a few words, and she still wasn’t sure what they were doing there.

"Doc!", They both turned to hear the serious voice of Cabe calling the genius, he had a serious countenance.

"Can I see him? Toby came out of his trance to talk to the man of national security.

"You owe me a big one Doc", with that, Toby knew he had made it. He knew there was a great chance when he called to go to the hospital. "I had to ask for a couple of favors, but ... Prepare a room and the patient, in an hour you will see Collins, you will only have 20 minutes".

"Collins?!, Mark Collins?!" Paige practically screamed, realizing she was catching attention, lowered her voice to a whisper, only audible to the two men. "Why do you want to see Collins?, And why didn’t you tell me ?!"

"Because if I told you, you wouldn’t come ... or you would run to tell Walter and Walter would tell Happy, and she would kill me", he explained eloquently. "I needed you here, so you can prevent me from hitting Collins", he added seriously. "I don’t want to go to jail for hitting a clinical patient in a psychiatric hospital".

"I probably want to hit him with you" Paige finished, "but ... Why do you want to see him?" The young man didn’t respond and she changed focus, the older man "Cabe?"

"Toby just wants to corroborate that Collins will not be a threat to Happy and her daughter".

"Why do you think he would be a threat to Lizzy?, He doesn’t even know her existence" Paige asked, the genius was hiding information and she was already in trouble for be there, Walter wouldn’t like that and she didn’t want to even imagine Happy’s reaction, Paige deserved to know why she would get in trouble.

"Collins worked as a gardener at the home of a relative of Alex, Lizzy's legal father" Toby finally explained "he had contact with her for a while, before disappearing".

"Why would he do that?, Oh please don’t tell me that he ..."

"He is the father?, No, I mean, I don’t ... I doubt there's a universe in which Happy has accepted that Collins touched her. It cost me years!".

The rest of the time they spent drinking coffee in the hospital cafeteria, the manager would give Cabe notice when everything was ready. Toby mentally prepared himself for the meeting, he knew that Collins would mock him, that he would distort everything he said, and that he should make use of all his knowledge of human behavior to read between the lines and get some information.

Thousands of meters beyond, Walter O'Brien tried to go unnoticed among the group of parents, mostly mothers, who waited outside the school, his attempts weren’t very good, and instead of going unnoticed, he only caught more attention, Some women watched him slyly and he couldn’t stop squeezing his lips and rolling his eyes while drumming with his fingers, he definitely had no pleasant thoughts for Toby at that moment. Fortunately, it was only a couple of minutes before the children started to leave the classroom, but instead of going outside the school, the teacher made them line up, for Walter it wasn’t difficult to distinguish Lizzy, it was who was in the first place and the teacher held firmly by the hand, while explaining something to the students, but the girl didn’t seem interested in this, instead she observed something that was out of reach, she tried to release and walk to where it was the object of her interest, but the teacher didn’t leave her.

"Are you the father of the new girl?, I hadn’t seen you around here before". It took Walter a few seconds to realize they were talking to him.

"No, no ... I'm friends with Happy, her mother"

"Oh, well, can you ask her to call me?, We are coordinating a sale of cakes to raise funds for school and I haven’t had a chance to talk to her". Walter nodded as he looked inside the school; the teacher still had the children in line. Why did it take so long? "or maybe you can give me her cell phone number to add to the group so that we can get to know each other".

"I don’t think it's a good idea" He was not sure that Happy was going to be happy with that, he wouldn’t be happy and she was just as sociable as he was "for security reasons I can’t give you her number", he lied.

"Oh ..."

"Thinking about it …" An idea crossed his mind. "I don’t think it's a bigger problem". He smiled exaggeratedly. "Take note." He began to dictate the number, a stupid little revenge, but he was sure he wouldn’t be happy when he saw his cell phone filled with notifications from a group of mothers.

"Thank you. Here come the children". "The woman stopped paying attention and headed for the great gate that prevented the entrance or exit of the school. The parents came to pick up their children and he noticed the look of Lizzy looking among the adults, is stopped her surprised look on him.

"Where is my mom?",the girl asked on the other side of the gate.

"Will you take Lizzy?" The teacher asked kindly as she continued to hold the child by the hand.

"Yes", Walter handed her the pass Toby had given him before, the woman looked at it closely and finally handed him the child. Who, being released from the teacher's hand running back into the school, to the point that had caught her attention before. The teacher ran immediately behind her, leaving her assistant in charge of delivering the rest of the children. Walter slipped inside the school went after the girl, found her in a corner looking at some kind of information panel, she said something to the teacher who didn’t seem to understand.

"I'm sorry, she's been obsessed with this panel all day, she's seen it at the first break of the morning, and since then she hasn’t stopped talking about it". Walter stood next to the woman and looked at the panel, It took a couple of seconds to discover what it was that had caught the girl's attention. It was a small and insignificant miscalculation in the equation that appeared in one of the many publicity photographs, surely for the teacher wasn’t important, but he had to admit that neither he could have continued his day without pointing out the obvious error, surely for the girl it was the same, she surely shared with him that feeling of discomfort when he saw something out of place.

"The result is wrong, Here", he pointed to the teacher, "Can we go now?", He asked the girl, who began to walk in front of him, without giving an answer.

"Will we go by bus?" She spoke again after a couple of meters walking in silence. "I don’t see your car".

"No, we'll take a cab".

"I want to go by bus. I've never taken one". Walter looked at her skeptically. "My parents never took the bus, and my mom didn’t either, she always says that people bother her and when we went to the park with Sylvester, he was afraid to take the bus with me, he thought someone might kidnap me and my mom would kill him".

"Maybe you can ask Toby or Happy to take you, Another day".

"Why not now?"

"Because they're not here."

"You could take me".

"No"

"Why not?"

"We don’t have time to wait for the bus".

"Here it comes" The girl pointed to the bus that was approaching at low speed. "And this one goes through the park that is near the garage".

"I don’t think ..." but it was too late, the bus had stopped right in front of them and Lizzy was up, he practically ran after her. "Are you crazy? Don’t run away from me!" He chided after paying for their tickets. The girl ignored him and concentrated on looking at the landscape that was passing through the window. Walter took a few minutes to relax, the buses definitely didn’t bring him good memories of childhood, he wasn’t someone who knew how to keep his mouth shut, he always talked about more and buses were not always adults who took care of the order, it was the paradise of the Bullies and he was a constant victim. He inhaled deeply to remove those thoughts from his mind, and instead focused on the girl, unable to avoid it, began to analyze the fine features of the child, she had inherited the asian features of her mother, even her serious countenance reminded him to her, clearly her genes had been predominant, but there was something about the girl that reminded her of another person, although he was not able to point who, the way her eyes glowed when she was happy, the waves they formed in her hair when she wore it loose.

"We're here", the girl announced, but before Walter realized she was getting off the bus.

"Wait," he said, more abruptly than necessary and feeling extremely uncomfortable, took the girl's hand.

"Hey! It hurts", the girl whined and Walter immediately released her.

"I'm sorry, I ..." He was definitely not good at it, before Scorpion, in his worst moments of social anxiety; he wasn’t even able to calculate the degree of strength he had to apply by shaking someone's hand. It was supposed to be natural, but not for him. He was going to apologize again to the child when he realized that she was no longer at his side. He looked desperate around him, he was going to run to find her when he saw her mounted in one of the games in the park, a couple of yards away and she laughed totally outside the almost heart attack that almost caused her. Walter thought that that would definitely be a very, very long afternoon.


	9. The lord of the flowers part 2

Mark Collins drummed his fingers on the table, waited absently. It wasn’t a surprise when he was told that he had visitors and what to say about who was visiting him. Since he had been held after the nuclear plant disaster, he had received only one visit and after the abduction and attempted murder of Toby, he had received three more visits, one of which had been a hopeful surprise, but he doubted that any of these were repeated. Mark could only imagine one person who would visit him under those circumstances.  
The door opened and the first thing Collins saw was the guard who was watching him, the guy was huge, with impassive eyes. His size prevented him from seeing who was behind, but it didn’t take more than a couple of seconds to solve the mystery and he couldn’t help the surprise reflected on his face .   
"Tobias Curtis!" He exclaimed happily as soon as the guard allowed the genius to enter the small room, not before reiterating that he would be right behind the door if he need him “I must admit that you were the least expected, but anyway…. It's better than nothing. When you are in a place like this, surrounded by intellectually inferior people” he bowed his head and whispered, “some little more intelligent than an ape, it’s appreciated to have a conversation with a person with a minimum of intelligence. Even if it's you”.  
"Yes, right, like if were a lot of people interested in seeing you". Toby took a seat in the chair that was right in front of Collins. He did it carefully, without looking away from the other man. "Your visiting schedule was so full that I had to get a little extra time", he added sarcastically.

"You'd be surprised". The smile on his face made Toby uncomfortable. "What brings you here Tobias? She rejected the proposal, didn’t she?”

“You knew it!” Toby accused.

“Know what? About her marriage or her little secret?". He paused, waiting for an answer, seeing that he wouldn’t receive any, he continued. “While I was there”, there was no need to specify where he was referring, Toby had immediately deduced “I had a lot of free time. I was curious. I wanted to know what Happy had done with the baby”.

“How did you know about her in the first place? Lizzy was born long after Walter locked you up. And Happy herself found out only a few weeks before she was born. How did you know about her pregnancy?”

“Who told you that? Happy?” The mocking tone couldn’t be more obvious. Toby felt stupid just because he had gone there, he knew what he was going to, no matter how much time passed, that he was behind bars, he could make him feel insecure, inferior. And Collins enjoyed that. “He lied”.

"This is a waste of time". He was about to stand to retire, completely convinced that this was useless, Collins would only play with his mind.

"Walter knew it, too". He put his hands on the table and began to wiggle his fingers together. “He took her to the hospital that morning. Before he get rid of me”. He made a gesture of displeasure at the last. "You’ll understand that my memories of those days are not the best", he put half a body on the table, trying to approach Toby, like if he wanted no one else to hear.“Walter and I had been out for a couple of days without sleep, lots of caffeine, and we also used some ... medications to help keep us awake”.

“Medicines? Drugs? Walter would never have done something like that", Toby said, but his confidence faded into the seconds. At that time, when he had just joined Scorpion, he thought he knew all the members more than anyone else, he could read them as open books, But it was not long before he realized how different reality was, it took even more for him to get a clear idea of what each team member was like, and it wasn’t long before his new perception began to fall as well, Collins and Walter began to change , small details that sometimes went unnoticed for the others, sometimes great gestures that all of them noticed. There came a point where there were times when he felt he didn’t know them; The whole team was affected indirectly, Happy, Sylvester and himself, they saw their moods affected, when the two geniuses were lost in their minds the atmosphere became tense, the rest of the geniuses almost didn’t speak and each one was dedicated to their personal projects. So it didn’t surprise him how far they could have gotten.

“It wasn’t me who got it. Walter wanted to increase his performance. As I was saying, my memories of those days are not quite clear, I remember Happy calling you asking for some help, but you never came". Toby said nothing, that was something he'd always blame himself for. He had seen the calls on his phone, but he had consciously ignored them, he believed that whatever it was, they could solve it without him. At that moment what he thought was to be with Amy. “Happy did her best to get us back. Well, she made an effort to bring Walter back, she would have let me die like a dog. I never liked her, it's something ... personal. You know, I became a bad third”.

"None of that has anything to do with what I want to know". Toby rolled his eyes and tried to appear indifferent, although the truth was that an old unknown had returned, what had been the trigger that led Collins to abandon Scorpion? He knew that Walter had locked him in, so the question became Why did Walter have him hospitalized? He, as a psychiatrist, he knew it, although Happy and Sylvester knew it too, the only one who didn’t realize how toxic Collins was, was Walter What had made him wake up? He knew there was a lot more than the genius had told Cabe.

"Happy got very sick in a moment, she was pale and she writhed in pain. Walter didn’t know what to do, he called you and you didn’t answer again". A pang of guilt again struck Toby. “When Happy finally agreed that Walter would take her to the hospital, she refused to let me go with them. I was curious to know what I could find on Happy's desk". He sat up straight in the chair and slowly extended his smile. “Imagine my surprise to see that test, well, those tests, she had three, all three tests were positive”.

"Why are you telling me all this?, I have not even asked a question yet”. The only reason he would give him the information voluntarily would be to look for something in return. Or maybe just sow doubt, confusion and mistrust in his head.

"To show you a point. Happy lied to you", he explained slowly. "And if she lied to you about that little detail, what makes you think she wouldn’t lie to you about something else?".

"And your word has more value?"

"You know I'm not lying. You can see it". He leaned back on the table, his hands clasped over it, except for the handcuffs, he seemed to be praying “but since you insist on changing the subject... What brings you here Tobias?”

"I want to know why you looked for Lizzy, What did you want?”.

“Know her, I was curious, didn’t you?, Most geniuses are not prone to procreation, you know, we are not very easy to treat". Toby admitted that until before Paige and Ralph's arrival none of them had thought of future children, they lived the present and with much luck subsisted on their own, taking care of someone else wasn’t an option “At first I thought the girl was stupid, she never paid attention, she never stood still and practically spoke only a few words. It took me a couple of weeks to realize how her brain worked, and Bingo!, She was just like us, to me. The world was too slow for her. Tobias!, It was fascinating to see how her little brain absorbed all sorts of knowledge, and they, they didn’t know the little prodigy that was in their hands!. They treated her like a normal girl, they expected her to play with dolls and send her to one of those kindergartens with other normal children” Toby didn’t go unnoticed that glitter of madness that illuminated his eyes “That girl has a great future ahead, being the result of the mixture of the genetic material of two geniuses, is the most viale”. ..

"Two geniuses?, You…? Do you know who Lizzy's biological father is?”. He couldn’t stop the show of interest from escaping, and Mark smiled.

"I see that Happy kept a lot of information for herself". Collins stood in the chair, trying to look more imposing, though the handcuffs and chains on his wrists and the orange suit didn’t help him much. “Why is that important, Tobias?,Is that making you feel insecure?, What is understandable, your IQ is the lowest of the team...” 

"The third lowest", Toby said.

"Sure, if you count the waitress and the cop. Besides that, you've been abandoned before, you're unstable ... you know, a gambler. You're not the best prospect of a parent” there he was again, getting into his mind, making him feel inferior and succeeding “I guess you're afraid that if the girl's father appears, be a better prospect than you” Toby looked at him in annoyance, each one of those words hit the target, but he wouldn’t let her know, consciously put his hands on the table and began to drum with his fingers “And I would bet that Happy hasn’t given you any clue about the identity of this man. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here”.

"Knowing that this man is a genius greatly diminishes the list, but I'm not sure he's a genius either. Why would you know who he is?”.

"Because I did a DNA test". Collins's smile widened, and Toby didn’t give a good spine. “How did you know which DNA to compare?”, He threw the question into the air. “I told you, I know Happy a lot more than you know her”. “I saw and heard things you only dreamed about, even though you were with Amy". He paused for a few seconds before continuing. “I shouldn’t talk, everyone say a gentleman has no memory”.

"What the hell are you trying to say!". Toby practically flung himself on the table to take Collins from the flap of the orange suit he wore. "are you're fucking kidding me!" He shouted, immediately attracting the attention of the waiting guard, who peered out of the small window of the door. "She would never have had anything with you".

"By the way you press my neck I would say that you are not so sure of that" he said brokenly as he began to lack air. "You are a genius, a little stupid, but a genius, even you are able to discover it for yourself. I'll give you a couple of hints Tobias”. the psychiatrist had finally released him, after the guard hit the window as a warning “July 17, 2010”.

"Lizzy was conceived in mid may”. 

“She was born in february, she's premature, she was born just over 8 weeks before the due date, didn’t you know that?" The smile of self sufficiency was there again.

"Toby!, Time’s up". Paige burst into the room, looked directly at the psychiatrist and tried not to make eye contact with the genius in prison.

"I'm coming, Paige. Just give me five more minutes" he said, for the first time since she had come in, made eye contact with Mark Collins. 

"What do you get by doing this?", Paige asked

"I'm just doing a favor to an old friend". Neither Toby nor Paige, who didn’t leave the room yet, believed him. Toby could see that his intentions went further, but he couldn’t find a single reason why Collins could benefit, on the contrary, he seemed more than amusing with the situation. 

"Let's go." Toby finally turned to leave the room, take the doorknob, when the other man spoke. 

“Does Happy still like to be gently stroked on her back?, Her skin is very sensitive there, especially near the spine” Toby was going to return when he was pushed out by the woman. 

"Come on Toby." Paige forced him out of the room. "What was that?"

"Did you get anything, kid?" Cabe asked immediately. 

"I don’t know, I ... I guess he's just trying to tease me”.

“Try?, Boy, look at you, he didn’t just try, he made it” Cabe said observing the attitude of the genius, especially the nervous way in which “Don’t you think you could just sit and talk to Happy?”, He asked.

“Great idea!”, why I hadn’t thought of it before?” Toby asked sarcastically.

“Drive him back home ... and ... Paige, drive you". Cabe walked away as fast as he could, still having to deal with the director of the institution, something he had managed to hear at the beginning of the conversation between the geniuses had captured his attention was also a good excuse to get away from the Psychiatrist.

"What's really bothering you, Toby?" Paige asked, once they were back on the road, she drove while the genius stood in the passenger seat, arms folded and frowning. There was no answer. "Is this really all about Lizzy's father?", not a word in reply. “That's in the past, Happy loves you, she is with you, whoever it was, was in the past”.

“It’s much more than that, but Cabe is right, is something that Happy and I must solve”. Toby finally said.

Thousands of miles away, Walter O'Brien, a genius with an IQ of 197, stood in the middle of a playground, his hand was hanging the pink backpack, which weighed more than he had expected. He tried to keep his eyes fixed on the little asian girl, who ran from game to game, her clothes completely dirty with dirt and something that seemed to be juice or yogurt, Walter couldn’t say it precisely from that distance. Snorted annoyed for the thousandth time, this wasn’t how he intended to spend his afternoon. His phone rang and he pulled back a bit to answer, it was Happy, asking how things were, Walter wasn’t sure if Happy cared about the girl or him. When he cut off the call he looked for Lizzy, but she wasn’t on the slide, nor on the swings, he looked around, but there was no trace of her.

"Lizzy! Lizzy! Elizabeth!” He started to run inside the park, checked back and under the seat, but the girl didn’t show up. He wasn’t in the bushes either and Walter felt his heart flutter, he knew that the statistics said that a large percentage of child abductions occurred in crowded places, in the sight of a large number of people, who didn’t know that they had just witnessed the abduction of a minor. People were beginning to focus on him, some asked how the girl was dressed and others just looked from a distance.

"Hey O'Brien!" the voice came from the side of the park, Walter was quick to identify the owner of the voice, was Harold Pastenes and beside him was Lizzy, who held something in her arms, completely unaware of the panic she had caused in her sitter.

“Hey!” He turned to the girl and once she was at his side, he could breathe at last. "I was calling you, why didn’t you answer?, Why did you leave the park?”

“I didn’t hear you”.

“What have you got there?”, The little girl handed him a small puppy with long black fur.

“It's a puppy”.

“I'm not an animal expert, but I can see it's a dog”. Walter took the little puppy practically with the tips of his fingers, smelled of urine, even though it otherwise seemed clean and had no leash.

“She was about to cross the street when I saw her” Harold spoke for the first time, the arrogance in his voice didn’t go unnoticed for Walter.

"I just looked away for a couple of seconds", Walter said. He left the puppy on the ground, hoping that soon someone else would take it, but as soon as it was released, the girl took it again. 

"What are you doing here?" He asked Harold.

“I wanted to talk with you. I was on my way to the garage”.

“Really?,Did you just walk to the garage when you saw her?”, Walter asked suspiciously.

“Yes. I wanted to talk about the security system you set up in the CIA offices”, even though he was talking to Walter, his eyes focused on the girl, who was firmly holding the puppy.

"Katherine hasn’t told me anything. Lizzy,let's go back to the garage". The girl took his hand and followed him on the walk, but without letting go of the puppy. The CIA man also followed, though he kept his distance. 

"I didn’t come in the name of the government", Harold said as they entered the garage. “I just want to talk”.

"I must solve ... this” the genius pointed to the girl, who was standing beside him, with the puppy still in her arms “You can go play there". He pointed to a box under Happy's desk, Blocks and other toys that the woman kept in place for the girl. 

“I don’t want to play" the little girl said.

“Every day when you get home from school you're going to play". Walter knew perfectly well the girl's daily routine, after all, she developed herself no more than a couple of yards from her place of work and it was impossible for him not to stare, but he had never approached to intervene directly.

"I'm hungry" Walter walked to the kitchen and checked the shelves, Paige again cleaned and removed all food labeled "unhealthy," considering that the child was still on a light diet, his chances were even more limited 

“I want to eat noodles”. 

“No noodles here”.

“Yes, there are noodles in the kitchen, Paige went to the grocery store a couple of days ago” she took a chair and sat down to wait while Walter looked at the shelves. Finally he found what he was looking for and he set to work at the attentive look of the girl and Harold who followed them to the kitchen, looking for the moment to speak.

“What do you want?”, Walter finally asked, not wanting to extend the time needed for Harold's visit.

"I want to make a proposal. To you and to Happy …”

"We're not interested in new projects", Walter cut him off, not even questioning the idea of answering for his friend.

"I have not even explained to you what it's all about ..."

“I don’t need to know”

"Well, I'll come later to talk to Happy”.

"She'll tell you no, just like the other times. Why do you waste your time insisting?”

"Maybe now she says yes”. Harold glanced sideways at the girl who was sitting a few feet away, staring at Walter, and unconsciously stroking the puppy, “her priorities have changed”. Walter didn’t answer, he waited for the man to say something else, but this one just said goodbye with a nod and left the place.

“Finally!” Lizzy exclaimed as soon as the genius put a plate of white noodles in front of her.

“First you must leave the dog and go wash your hands", Walter said.

"His name is Boby", The tone of her voice reminded him of Happy, when she tried to explain something complex to a normal person. He felt insulted. 

"You should not name him". Happy won’t let you keep it but she had already gone in the direction of the bathroom, leaving him with the word in his mouth and a puppy in his hands. 

Happy remained silent for much of the way back, she didn’t even try to pay attention to what Sylvester said, she seemed to hear something about tomatoes and the correct way they should be cultivated, but she didn’t listen beyond that, the landscape behind the window seemed extremely interesting, but she wasn’t paying attention to what his friend was talking about or the landscape, her mind wasn’t there at the moment, she was many miles away and many years in the past, recalling some decisions and situations that had led her to where she was now. 

"Happy!", Sylvester's voice took her out of her reverie. “Are you listening to me?” When he saw her confused look, he knew the woman wasn’t paying attention. "I told you that I wanted to do a mini vegetable garden in the garage, I thought maybe Ralph and Lizzy could help me, it would be good for them relate with nature".

"You just want to be helped so you don’t have to do the dirty work", Happy said.

“Not only that, I like being with them. It would be interesting to do something different” he said proudly of himself, it was a great step to work on something outside his comfort zone, especially when being voluntarily.

“Why’s that?” Happy asked

“Scorpion is changing, Walter has changed, Toby stopped gambling and you, you have Lizzy. I know it's only a small step, but since I couldn’t buy the naming rights for the new pediatric ward, I thought I'd do something more in Megan’s memory”.

"I'm sure Lizzy will like to help you". Happy was lost in her memories again, otherwise she would have noticed Sylvester's nervous gaze and the way he opened and closed his mouth trying to say something else.

“She reminds me of Megan. Sometimes when she smiles I feel like I'm staring at Megan when she was little". A silly grin appeared on her lips. “I wonder what our son or daughter would have been like. I never thought of children that way ...”

“You're like a big boy”.

“I know, but ... I never thought you could be a mother” he instinctively tried to get as far away from the woman as possible, something quite difficult since they were inside a moving vehicle “I don’t mean that you're doing wrong” he excused himself immediately at the sight of the woman's glare, but immediately her face lost all trace of anger and became impassive, as always.

"I didn’t think it could be either". She let out a sigh and looked back at the genius. "You're young, who knows, maybe someday you'll meet somebody ... Oh you could adopt a dog”.

"Oh God, not a dog, do you know how many diseases they can transmit?, They're dirty, they roll around on the ground and ... they poop anywhere” the genius didn’t hesitate to expose each and every one of the reasons why he would never have a dog as a pet. He was aware that she didn’t hear him, but he needed to fill the awkward silence she had imposed.

Night had already fallen when they approached the garage, with his usual agility Happy took her tools from the truck and headed inside the garage. She met an unusual silence, only interrupted by a soft laugh that could be heard from the back of the garage. she left her tools on the table and walked to where the sound came from. Sylvester followed closely, he was as curious as she was.

Happy thought to find Walter working and Lizzy playing or doing anything while ignoring each other, even hoping to see them having dinner or something like that while she talked incessantly and he pretended to pay attention, what she never expected was to see them both in the middle of thousands and thousands of pieces of legos, mounted one on top of another to form what looked like a city on a scale, were huge buildings that came almost to the waist of the girl, houses of all sizes and colors and even a pair of figures that looked have a human aspect.

"Wow!, 197 is having a good time" Happy said, scowling at the scene. Sylvester stared back at him. It was definitely not what they expected to find.

"Lizzy must make a representation of the city for her art class", Walter explained as he noticed the presence of the two geniuses.

“I don’t think her teacher expected anything like this", Sylvester said, looking over every detail of the mini town.

"Where did this come from?" Happy asked, calculating the number of pieces that must have been there. 

"From the store," Lizzy said, who had stopped focusing on what she was building to look at them. "We also bought a bed for Bobby”. 

"Who's Bobby?" but the mathematician didn’t need an answer because at that moment the puppy came barking and wagging his tail, gave small jumps trying to get his attention. 

"We won’t have a dog, Lizzy," Happy said immediately, recalling a couple of conversations she had already had with the girl, who wanted a new pet at all costs, but Alex had warned her about how she had suffered when the puppy she had given away years before had died. Walter and the girl looked at each other with complicity and Happy was sure to have heard that the genius whispered an "I told you so".

 

"He can stay in the garage, he'll be with Bueller and Walter when we all go home". Lizzy said proudly.  
"I won’t pay for his food or vaccines or the vet or whatever he breaks", Happy said immediately.   
“Toby may be his doctor and we don’t need a vet”, Lizzy said, who had approached the edge of town to reach the puppy.

“Toby is a doctor, not a vet", Sylvester explained. “He takes care of people, not animals”.

“What’s the difference?” the girl gave up in her attempt to reach the puppy and returned to the center of the city, this time to add more pieces to the building that Walter built. 

"Here's the garage". Walter pointed to a small building near his feet. 

“And here we are” Lizzy took out of her pocket some small lego characters, and during the following minutes she dedicated herself to explain who was who, although some accessories made it pretty obvious.

It was late at night when Toby finally dropped into his chair. The garage was empty, not even Walter was in sight and the silence was comforting, allowing him to think more clearly. He couldn’t keep Collins's words from his head, he'd spent the whole trip thinking about that possibility. He knew that the genius had chosen his words very well, he wanted to play with him, so it was hard for him to really believe what he had said. There were many things about Happy that he wasn’t quite sure of, but his repulsion toward Collins was not one of them, he knew that from the moment he joined Scorpion when the team was made up of Walter, Happy, Sylvester and Collins. 

“What are you doing here?” Walter's voice made him jump.

“Work?” , Walter gave him an incredulous look, but he ignored it and continued on his way to his own desk. 

“Walter?”, Toby had a sudden idea, if there was someone who could know for sure if something had happened between the engineer and the genius, it was him 

“How was Happy and Collins's relationship before Sly and I joined?” from his position practically had to shout for the genius to listen to him.

"What do you mean by relationship?" He asked without looking up from his screen.

"Well, the dictionary defines relationship as the union between two or more people”.

“I know what a relationship is, but between Happy and Mark there was never any, more than being part of the same team, they never had any kind of relation like Happy and Sly or you and me, for her, Mark was only a piece of furniture in the garage and I think somehow he felt threatened by Happy”.

“I'm not surprised. His misogynist and narcissistic pride was hurt by the presence of Happy...” Toby was interrupted by a scream coming from the back of the garage “What the hell?”, Both he and Walter stood to go in the direction of the sound, but it wasn’t necessary, Sylvester appeared in a hurry as he fingered the puppy, taking care to keep it as far as possible from his body.

“Bobby urinated in the miniature city, do you know how many bacteria the urine can have?”, How many diseases can transmit? I'll have to disinfect all the pieces”, Sylvester was going to leave Bobby on the floor, but Walter stepped forward and took it from the mathematician's hands.

"Since when do we have a dog?" Toby asked, joining them as he watched the puppy.

"Lizzy found it and Walter agreed to leave it in the garage," Sylvester accused him as he wiped his hands with some sort of disinfectant.

“What?” Walter asked as he felt Toby's accusing look. “I couldn’t just leave it back on the street”.

"You couldn’t tell her no, right?" He asked suspiciously, “a 5 year old girl manipulated you", he added mockingly.

"It was my idea, Bueller needs company", the genius said, avoiding to look directly at the psychiatrist. 

"Why did you ask about Happy and Collins?”

"Happy and Collins?" Sly asked surprised, “The only time I saw them talk about something that wasn’t related to work, was when Happy threatened to kill him. Well, she didn’t just threaten him”.

"It was an unimportant detail", Walter said, dismissing the matter, while going to the kitchen to find something Boby could eat, in a clear attempt to avoid that conversation.

“An unimportant detail? I had never seen her so angry, not even when you left her planted. She didn’t settle for just throwing whatever was within her reach, that day I learned that I should never make Happy Quinn angry” . Sylvester shuddered at the thought of what might happen. Walter had returned to his desk and quickly began to work.

“What did Collins do to make her so angry?"

“I don’t think I have to talk about it, I don’t want her to get mad at me". Toby thought he was up against something big, not even Walter seemed too willing to talk about it. 

"Come on, Sly", he led him to a secluded spot where Walter couldn’t hear them. 

“You have to help me with this". He looked at the genius at the desk, making sure he paid no attention to them and practically whispered in Sly's ear". “I think Collins may be Lizzy's father"

“What?" , the mathematician shouted and immediately realized his mistake. "Are you crazy?"

"I know that sounds absurd, but I have no more ideas. I've only seen Happy with two men, in addition to her attempt with Peyton Temple, but none of the dates fit and she refuses to tell me about it. I need to know". 

“But ..., for him to be the father ... he and Happy ... They…” the young man made incomprehensible signs with his hands, the only idea was difficult to put into words.

“They should have had sex, I know. And as much as I think about it, I can’t conceive of a universe in which she let him touch her” Toby screamed in whispers, if that was possible and every few seconds he checked his boss working on his computer. “He told me ... I went to see him” , he added when he saw that Sylvester still didn’t understand at all.

“I repeat, are you crazy?!”, Sylvester took a deep breath before continuing. “You're a Harvard Behaviorist and you also meet Collins. You know what he's like. He wants to get into your head, make you doubt everything you know”.

"You don’t understand Sly", Toby gritted his teeth. “He knew something very private about Happy, how did he know?”

“Oh, I don’t know how he could know anything deprived of Happy” the mathematician went from being visibly uncomfortable to being notoriously nervous.

“Sylvester Dodd!”, Toby said in a menacing tone, something he had learned after spending so much time with Happy. “If you know anything, you must tell me, as a colleague, as a friend”.

“Collins recorded her while she was having sex with someone!”, Sylvester screamed so fast that Toby had serious doubts about what he had heard. "It was an accident, he said. One of his microphones recorded Happy having sex", he explained with a little more calm. “We were hearing some audios picked up by the microphones, which were scattered within a 30kilometer radius around the garage, when the tape began to play, I couldn’t look Happy in the face for weeks. Say that she got angry is not enough. It was a great fight between her and Walter, Happy wanted Collins to leave the team ...”

“And I should have fired him”, The both man jumped at the sound of Walter’svoice, who had crept in. "But I didn’t realize at that time how bad his fault had been.He told me that it was an accident and I believed him, I talked to Happy and ...”

"Did you talk to her?, Did you both talk or did you just have a monologue about how important it was to keep Collins on the team?”, Toby glared at him, just imagining what the situation might have been made him angry”.

"We talked". He looked directly at the psychiatrist before continuing. “Now I realize that maybe we didn’t take things the way it should. Mark was a great asset to the team, but I never considered the cost involved”.

"Why had not anyone told me about this?"

“It wasn’t something we wanted to talk about ... It was uncomfortable”. Sylvester replied, “I was 16 years old, I had come to the team just a few weeks ago, I had never been or heard a woman like that and Happy intimidated me, well, it still intimidates me. It wasn’t something I wanted to talk about”.

"I don’t see why we should have told you about it”. Toby was about to hit Walter, it would have been a good way to vent, but he reacted in time and instead just left the garage.

He walked for almost two hours, without a fixed course, only traveling old streets that he knew of old. Streets that had seen him in the lowest moments of his life, where he would have bet his own soul if he could, toby had bet his life more than once and even if it was against everything he believed in, he knew that in many occasions he had been lucky enough to save himself. He knew how to play, he had a more than beneficial advantage, he could read his opponents, but he didn’t know when to stop. He wasn’t able to put a limit to his addiction, until happy asked him to stop doing it.

Happy Quinn, the name only caused feelings in him. A woman, who, in his opinion, was simply perfect. She had always been sincere and transparent, she was of the people who acted and said what they felt. She was an open book, he couldn’t help laughing at the thought of the last, it finally turned out that this book contained too many secrets between the lines ... and wow! What secrets.

Before he was fully aware of the place where his feet had taken him, he heard a sound familiar to him. The elevator, it was Happy's elevator, not only was in her building, he was standing right in front of her door. He complained, annoyed with himself. His own feet had betrayed him, he was about to turn around when the door opened.

"Toby?" He turned to meet the engineer, who was staring at him from the doorway. She looked drowsy.

“Did you go anywhere?” He asked, though he knew the answer in advance, her messy hair and old, loose clothing, indicating that she was about to fall asleep.

"The sensor", she explained, pointing to the rug that was right in front of her door.

“Oh, right” . Toby remembered that Happy's "Welcome" rug was no more than a sensor to pick up and register every time a person stood on it, not only get a record, but also the weight that was put on it. He had mocked her, calling her paranoid.

“Are you going to come in? Or did you just come to weigh yourself on my rug?” She asked as she stepped aside to let the genius in. Toby wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to accept the invitation, that would lead to an inevitable fight and after the fight, he didn’t think he could pretend that nothing happened, not that night, but he didn’t want to raise an argument either and that the little girl who surely was already asleep, ended up listening to everything.

"I don’t think it's a good time", he said, turning away to leave.

“Really?”, Happy bit her lower lip, hoping the genius would quit “Lizzy is sleeping in her room. I thought maybe we could lie down and watch a movie” Toby swallowed hard, stood thinking about how bad it could be. They hadn’t been able to share more intimately for a while, he missed feeling her with him. Without words, he accepted the invitation and entered the apartment. He stood in the middle of the room, waiting for Happy to lead the initiative, whatever they were going to do. “What do you want to see?” Happy asked, as he walked to her room, somewhat confused by the attitude of the genius. “Toby?”, “are you ok?” she insisted looking at the threshold, the genius hadn’t followedher, he was still planted in the middle of the room looking around as if he had never been there before.

“Yes, I ...” , He went straight to the room avoiding any contact with Happy the moment he passed by. The tension in the environment was palpable.

After the genius finally chose something to watch on T.V, he took off his shoes and lay back on the bed, gave a couple of slaps to his side to invite Happy to lie down with him.

Half an hour later, they were lying exactly in the same position. She had rested her head on his shoulder, her eyelids growing heavier and with each passing minute it was harder to keep them open. 

"I don’t know what's happening to you today", Happy began, even as she was sleepy, her voice sounded imposing, “but if you want to talk, Do it. If you didn’t know. I’m not a mind reader”.

"Do you want me to talk?, all right. Let's talk". Toby sat down on the bed, breaking the embrace they shared. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about Alex? Why don’t you want to talk about Lizzy's father?, Why didn’t you ever tell me about her?”, He practically screamed and tried to look directly at Happy, but the darkness didn’t allow him to establish a visual connection. "No problem if you don’t want to talk" he stood up ready to leave. “See you at work”.

“Wait", Happy whispered, sitting up in bed, still a little sleepy. “Before you say it, even I am able to realize that our relationship is in trouble. I want to fix it, but ... I don’t know how to do it. I know how to repair machines, not people, or relationships”.

"It's a point for you," Toby said sarcastically, yet he took another place in bed, right in front of her, trying to see Happy's fine features in the dimness of the room, lit only by the glow of the TV on. “A good way to start would be by talking to the truth. You know. For a change”.

“Alex was the first person to ever gave up, no matter what I did, when I tried to push him away, he was always there. He never gave up. I didn’t know how to respond to her interest, I used to tell him to leave me alone, but he never did. Over time he became a constant in my life, the only person who supported me .. who believed in me and …” The engineer avoided the look of genius. “I didn’t know how to respond to it. We live many things together. I shared apartment with Alex and Carl for a while,our environments were completely different, while they enjoyed social life, being the center of attention, I preferred to be surrounded by my tools all day. One project after another. I spent days locked in her basement or sometimes just disappeared for weeks. When I got my own apartment, communication with Alex disappeared, he became Judge and Carl was an important prosecutor, his social life, staff and his work made them take a course very different from mine, mainly because I had no direction to follow. One day, Carl called to tell me that Alex had been diagnosed with cancer". At that point, Toby could see a shadow of sadness taking hold of Happy's gaze. “I never had anyone in my life, so I had never lost anyone, death was only a stage of the cycle of life. We will all die someday”. “I wanted to show him my support, but I didn’t know how. I harassed him with investigations, experimental medicines, books, in all languages, sent them to email, to his house, to his office, but I never visited him personally. I needed to do it, I needed to find something to help even a little, but still, I didn’t do it for him, I did it for me, I didn’t want the only person I had ever loved in my life died”.

“When we feel sorry for the death of a person, we don’t feel sorry for them really, but for ourselves, we become a little more aware of our own mortality. It happens to all human beings. Not even the geniuses are saved from it". Toby told her.

“Alex told me that the best way I could show him how important it was for me was to live my own life. And don’t die for some stupid reason like falling off my motorcycle, overdose of drugs or ending up in a conflict between traffickers and especially not end up in jail for having done some stupidity”, she raised her arm so that Toby saw that watch on her wrist, the device she always wore, the strap had broken once, the batteries had run out a couple of times, the mechanism had broken a few times too, but Happy always fixed it. Now Toby understood why, the watch had an emotional value for her. “He gave me this watch. It's stupid, but ...”

“You have carried it with you every day of your life since then. Even if it is delayed in 10 minutes, and you have repaired it more times than your motorcycle. A stupidity or not, for you is important”.

“I've never regretted my decision”. She admitted embarrassed. “I was always aware that it was a temporary situation, the cancer would end up beating Alex, but I would rather not think about it. He constantly invited me to get close to Lizzy, to be a part of her life, but I never did. I would like to say that I didn’t know how to do it, but the truth is that I didn’t even try. She was happy and I wanted it to remain, things were exactly as they should be”.

"You're doing fine". He took her hand in his and gently massaged them. Happy was silent, enjoying the contact. “Lizzy has a great mother, an intelligent and brave woman”. “I know better than anyone that this is new to you, that you're scared and that every time Lizzy cries you'd rather be disarming a bomb about to explode than to be there. But you are trying and you are on the right way”.

"You're not impartial about it”.

“The fact that I who have feelings for you does not change the fact that I am the most intelligent human behavior analyst in the world. I am," he added arrogantly. “And my opinion is professional”. She responded by rolling her eyes, but still a slight smile appeared on her face. "I went to see Collins," Toby confessed suddenly, in a quiet silence, he held his breath as he waited for her reaction.

“Are you crazy?!” Toby made a gesture of answering. "It's a rhetorical question. Why did you go to see that lunatic?”

"I needed to talk to him."

"Really, Doc?, With Collins?”, Happy remained expressionless, kept her voice low, she didn’t want to wake the little girl who slept in the next room.

“I needed answers!", Toby practically shouted, immediately regretted it, stood up, though he held his position in front of her and stepped back, like an unconscious form of recanting. "And you! You don’t want to give them to me”.

“Answers about what?, About whom I had sex with?”. She got up in bed, in a kind of challenge. 

“You know I did it with Alex, and so are Esteban and Fabian, you met them”.

“It's not about that!”

“What is it then?, I didn’t ask for a list of the women you were with.The past is ... in the past. Now we are ... or we were together”.

“Is different. I haven’t had a child with any of them”.

“What is the difference?, Would it have changed anything if you had made them pregnant?"

“No!, But it is undeniable that a kind of bond arises. A child, It's not anything”. 

"You're a Doctor, do you know what it takes to make a baby?" the sarcasm was implicit in every syllable he uttered “Sex !, not love, not trust, not a marriage. And that's exactly what happened between Lizzy's father and me".

“Ok, If was just that. Why don’t you tell me who is he?, Is he Collins?”

“He’s not! is not Collins". A slight shiver ran through her at the thought. “What the fuck did that lunatic put in your head?”

“Nothing! I'm just trying to understand. I try to put together the fucking puzzle you've become". He sat down in front of her, just to take her by the hand, more rudely than necessary, he needed more than words to express himself. Realizing that he was exerting an unnecessary pressure, he let go of it and instead put his hands in his own head. “I hate you", he said more to himself than to her. 

"No, you don’t", she replied, as she had done many times before. “Why is this so important Toby?!”, “This is not just who Lizzy's father is”.

"Because I finally thought I had a Happy family. We were a family!, You and I…” his voice broke as he spoke and his arms made random movements, just because he couldn’t keep them still. “I thought that ours was important for you, but ... how do I know that in the future this won’t be another thing of the past that you don’t want to talk about?. 

“You know me”

“Do I? Because it seems that even a sick, lunatic in the psychiatric holpital knows you better than I do”.

“Stop putting Collins in the middle of this!” Happy was going to say more when the light of the room ignited and the glitter blinded it for a few seconds. “What the …?”

“Why were you fighting?”, Lizzy was standing at the door, barely keeping her eyes open and carrying a teddy bear with her.

"We weren’t fighting”. “Not yet” Happy walked up to her to take her back to her room, but when she went to take her, she realized that the bottom of her pajamas was wet. 

“I’m sorry. I peed on the bed”.

“Don’t worry, we'll just clean you up, put on some new pajamas and change the bed and then you can go back to sleep, okay?”, Lizzy nodded in silence and remained static in place, while Happy went to her room for some clothes. 

"It's all right, I also wet myself in bed when I was a kid". Toby came and crouched in front of the child. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone"

“Emily said that only babies do that. I'm not a baby", she added annoyed. 

"Not just babies, CanI tell you a secret?” The girl nodded and Toby came over to whisper. “Sometimes it happens to adults, too"

“You're lying", she said in disbelief.

“No, sometimes if we are sick, or very drunk ... mostly drunk, our bladder doesn’t remind us to urinate and only does it. Or sometimes while we sleep our subconscious does it to alert us that there is something that scares or worries us. When I was a child and I went to school I always peed, there were bigger kids who always beat me and I didn’t tell anyone, because I was afraid they would hit me harder” The girl avoided his gaze and remained with eyes down. “Is there anything you're afraid of?” she denied energetically “Well, if someday there's something that scares you, you know you can tell your mom, and if she scares you too, you can tell me, or Sly. Ok?”.

"Come on, Lizzy", Happy returned to the room carrying the necessary things for a quick bath. “You skipped the part where they hit you because you cheated them by playing cards”. She added once that the girl had walked to the bathroom. 

"I didn’t cheated them, I only used my intellectual superiority". Happy just shook his head and followed the girl's path.

Twenty minutes later, Happy returned to her room with the girl practically asleep in her arms. She didn’t expect to find the genius still there, so she was surprised to see him asleep on the edge of the bed. With great care she laid the child on the opposite shore to which the genius was.

“Doc!”, Happy called him at the same time that it shaken him to awaken him up “Doc! You fell asleep", she said as he opened his eyes lazily.

"I don’t think so" he murmured, turning away from Happy as he covered himself with a blanket to his head. She sighed loudly as she thought about throwing him out of bed to wake him up suddenly, they had a pending conversation, but on the other hand she was in no hurry to continue. With resignation she made a mental note to get Toby out of bed before the girl woke up.  
She switched off the light, the TV and lay down in the middle of the bed between two of the most important people in her life, she hugged the girl and let herself be overcome by sleep.

Happy Woke up a couple of hours later by loud and incessant knocks on the door, she tried to get up, but the weight of strong arms prevented her, Toby held her firmly against him, her back was attached to his pecs and their legs were intertwined with each other. Toby slept peacefully and so did Lizzy, who had moved so much in her sleep that she had ended up occupying half the bed, leaving Happy and Toby cuddled on the edge of the bed. With some difficulty she freed herself from the suffocating embrace, while at the same time making sure that the thunderous noise at the door hadn’t woken her guests.

“I'm coming!” She yelled annoyed, she didn’t even take the time to check who was looking so urgently. 

She slammed the door open to find Paige very agitated. “Wow girl, I didn’t know you could hit so hard”.

“We have to go to the garage, now!” Paige grabbed her wrist to pull her out, but Happy got away easily. 

“We have to pick up Toby, he doesn’t answer the cell phone either. 

"Oh", Happy grimaced. 

"Oh, that's right… Lizzy!, You'll have to take her, it's urgent. Cabe was desperate", Paige explained. 

"Happy?” Paige raised her eyebrow in question. 

"Is Toby…?" The woman stopped talking as soon as the genius appeared in the doorway and he was as surprised as she was. 

“We have to go to the garage, now!”.


End file.
